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“Poison !” exclaimed Alice. “Why, it must have been meant to kill 

the bees !” 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


BY 

FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
H. C. EDWARDS 



NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 
1917 





h/ 


Copyright, 1917, by 
The Century Co. 


Copyright, 1916, by 
Perry Mason Company 

Published f September^ 1917 



SEP 20 i9l7 

©CI,A4^8586 

j 


TO ROSA 

WHO HAS HELPED ME TO HARVEST 
SO MUCH HONEY IN THE 
WILDERNESS 






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This story has appeared serially in the “Youth’s 
Companion,” and my thanks are due the publishers for 
permission to reprint it. 

Frank Lillie Pollock. 

The publishers also wish to acknowledge the cour- 
tesy of the “Youth’s Companion” in arranging for 
the use of the pictures. 


'V* 






CONTENTS 


I 

The Bee Fever 

PAGE 

.... 3 

II 

Trouble in the Dark 

. . • . 35 

III 

Strange Perils 

.... 82 

IV 

Honey and Swarms . 

. 120 

V 

Failing Hopes 

.... 147 

VI 

Robbing the Robber . 

. 172 

VII 

Reaping the Harvest 

.... 199 

VIII 

A Run of Luck 

. 228 

IX 

Stopping a War . 

. 248 

X 

Fire and Water . 

. . . . 285 

XI 

A Good Summer’s Work . 

. . . • 313 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

“Poison!” exclaimed Alice. “Why, it must have 

been meant to kill the bees!” . . Frontispiece y 

It was not without a secret feeling of misgiving 

that Alice and Bob bade farewell to Har- , 

man’s Corners 29 ^ 

Two of the hives that were farthest from the 

house had been pillaged 77 

It was not a wild beast in the trap ; it was a man ! 93 

“No, you stay here, Allie. There won’t be any 

shooting, but this is no girl’s business . . 187 

He was plainly in no condition to show fight and 

the boys advanced without hesitation . . 201 

It wheeled in a panic and went straight over the ^ 
bee yard, clearing the hives in great bounds . 281 



WILDERNESS HONEY 




WILDERNESS HONEY 


CHAPTER I 


THE BEE FEVER 


E ’LL have to sell the store/’ said Bob 



Harman, with decision. ‘'No use blink- 


ing it.” 

“What, sell Harman’s !” cried his sister Alice, 
aghast. 

“Well, why not?” Bob demanded. “It’s 
bringing nothing in. It has n’t been paying ex- 
penses for ever so long. We ’d all be richer if it 
had been sold years ago.” 

“Very likely,” muttered Carl. “But fancy 
Harman’s going out of the family !” 

All three turned and looked at the weather- 
beaten side of the frame building adjoining the 
house — the store that for half a century had 
been known as “Harman’s.” It had been a great 
place in its day, had Harman’s. Almost the first 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


4 

recollections of all three children were connected 
with the store. They had played behind the 
counters, been weighed on the big scales ; and the 
familiar, rich smell of molasses and tea and hard- 
ware and cloth was like an odor of home. Later 
they had helped to serve customers — it did not 
keep them very busy — and for the last year Carl 
had managed the business almost single-handed. 
It did seem impossible to give up the store. 

The three orphans were holding a council on 
the front veranda of the old brick house where 
the Harmans had lived ever since they came as 
pioneers into Upper Canada. Once there had 
been three hundred acres of land, and capacious 
barns and stables, and stock, but all this had dwin- 
dled away, till the farm was represented by ten 
acres behind the house, and even this was rented 
to a neighbor. 

The April sunshine was warm on the veranda, 
although the fields were still brown, and patches 
of snow lay here and there in sheltered nooks. 
The maples at the roadside were red, and in 
Alice’s garden green sprouts were bravely push- 
ing up. On the south side of the fence were the 


THE BEE FEVER 5 

twelve white-painted hives of her bees, and the 
hum of flying insects filled the air. 

Nearly eighty years before the Harmans had 
been among the first pioneers who broke into the 
wilderness north of Lake Ontario. They had 
helped to open the roads ; they had cleared land ; 
and they had started a frontier store on the new 
highway. For two generations the hamlet that 
sprang up there was known as ‘'Harman’s Cor- 
ners.” It lay on the direct road to Toronto and 
it had its great days before the railway came. In 
winter the laden sleighs went past by scores, car- 
rying wheat and meat and timber to the growing 
city, and the drivers all stopped at the cross-road. 
The Corners supported three taverns, all doing a 
thriving trade. The fourth corner was occupied 
by the store. 

As there were no other stores in that district, 
Harman’s had a monopoly of trade, and its owner 
should have grown rich. But the Harman of 
that day lacked business enterprise. He was 
good-natured, slow, procrastinating, and spent 
more time at the taverns than behind his counter. 
The store lost ground, and when the railway was 


6 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


built and passed three miles away to touch at 
Woodville, the Corners received its death-blow. 

Produce went to Toronto by rail instead of by 
sleigh or wagon. Harman's was out of the line 
of traffic. The three taverns closed one by one. 
At Woodville the Elliott Brothers established an 
enterprising store, with all the modern tricks of 
trade. The farmers went thither to do their buy- 
ing, and Harman's stock grew shop- worn and out 
of date. 

Still, Mr. Harman clung to the business, keep- 
ing no proper books, but cherishing a vague idea 
that the store was maintaining his family, while, 
in fact, it was losing money daily, and all but ten 
acres of the farm had to be sold. For the last 
two years he had been ill; for nearly a year Carl 
had had virtually entire management and had dis- 
covered the truth. During this time the Elliott 
Brothers had repeatedly offered to buy the store. 
They wished to run it as a branch of their Wood- 
ville establishment, and Carl had urged his father 
to sell. Mr. Harman, however, refused to enter- 
tain the idea for a moment, and remained firm up 
to that March day when he died. Mrs. Harman 


THE BEE FEVER 


7 

had died four years earlier, and the three chil- 
dren were orphans, with what looked like a los- 
ing inheritance. 

Alice was eighteen years old and had been 
keeping house for the family ever since her moth- 
er’s death. She was tall, brown-haired, and 
gray-eyed; an out-of-door girl, full of energy. 
She was a great chicken-raiser and an indefati- 
gable gardener. The bees she had had for three 
years, starting with three hives, and had already 
acquired a very cheerful bank account of her own 
from the sale of honey. 

Bob was nineteen, dark-haired, rather short, 
and powerfully built. His turn of mind was 
highly scientific and practical, and he was trying 
to get through a course of electrical engineering 
at the Toronto School of Science, where he was 
better known as a half-back on the varsity 
team. 

Carl was a year and a half younger than Alice 
and was her chief assistant with the bees, but 
he lacked his brother’s muscles. He had an idea 
that something in journalism would suit him ex- 
actly, but it was a long way from Harman’s Cor- 


8 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


ners to a daily newspaper office. Meanwhile he 
looked after the store and attended the Wood- 
ville High School when he could, riding to and 
fro on his bicycle, and tried to prepare for the 
university. 

But educational prospects looked rather bad 
just then. Everything had to be subordinated 
to the question of making a living, and Bob had 
come up from Toronto to help in threshing the 
matter out. 

All the property had been left to the three 
children, and an old neighbor and friend, Isaac 
Ferguson, was appointed executor and trustee 
till the heirs should come of age. But an inven- 
tory of the property revealed a disastrous state 
of affairs. 

All the land and buildings were heavily mort- 
gaged. Although no proper books had been 
kept, it was plain that the store had not been pay- 
ing expenses for a long time, and there was an 
appalling collection of unpaid bills — many of 
them bills for stock that had grown old and 
worthless. When all these liabilities were 
cleared off, there would not remain much more 


THE BEE FEVER 9 

than a thousand dollars from Mr. Harman's es- 
tate. 

Part of this state of things was no surprise 
to Carl, who had been in closer touch with the 
business than either Alice or Bob, but even he 
rather inclined to the idea that it would be best 
to clear out the old stock at any price, get in some 
fresh stuff, and try to float the business for a lit- 
tle longer, at any rate. 

''Even if we did sell out," he argued, "we 
wouldn't get enough to live on for long, and 
we 'd have no chance of making any more." 

"Elliott's would pay one of us forty dollars a 
month to stay here as clerk. I was talking to 
them yesterday," responded Bob. "That would 
be a good job for Alice." 

"No, I 'll never do that, and I don't, see how 
you could go to see those people!" cried Alice, 
hotly. "If I only had a hundred hives of bees 
like these we would n't need anything from any- 
body," she went on after a moment's indigna- 
tion. "Why, last year I made over one hundred 
and twenty-five dollars from only eleven hives." 

"I wish we had them, too," said Carl, "but we 


lo WILDERNESS HONEY 

have n’t, so v^hat ’s the use. Bees cost about ten 
dollars a colony here and hard to get at that. I 
declare, Allie, you could get nearly as much for 
your apiary as the store is worth ?’' 

'1 would n’t sell them, though, not for twenty 
dollars a hive!” the girl declared. ‘I’d rather 
see the store go, by a great deal. What do you 
think we ought to do, Bob?” 

“I don’t know,” returned her brother, slowly. 
“Maybe I ’ve an idea, but the present question 
to be settled is whether we want to accept El- 
liott’s proposition — to buy us out, I mean.” 

They discussed the worrying problem all the 
rest of the afternoon and at supper and during 
the evening and at intervals the next day. Then 
Bob had to return to his classes in Toronto and he 
went away, leaving the matter still unsettled. 

Spring came on with the breathless haste of 
the North. The last patches of snow vanished. 
The grass grew greener daily; tulips were bud- 
ding; and the bees were gathering honey pro- 
fusely from the pussy-willows. Alice and Carl 
went through the hives, cleared out the winter’s 
dirt from the bottom-boards, spaced the combs 


THE BEE FEVER 


11 


properly, scraped away excrescences of wax and 
propolis. They were so engaged, when Bob 
suddenly appeared without any warnng, ten days 
after his departure. 

‘'Hurrah! What's up?" shouted Carl, pull- 
ing off his hat and bee-veil and rushing to meet 
him. “You 've got some news. I can see it." 

“Nothing much," returned Bob. “Anyway I 
won't say anything about it just now. Go ahead 
with your work. And, say, have you got an ex- 
tra hat and veil ? I 'd like to look on." 

Bob had never handled the bees much, nor 
taken any great interest in them, so that both 
Carl and Alice were surprised at his request. 
However, they were too busy at the moment to 
discuss it, and he was provided with a mosquito- 
net veil, which he draped about his hat. He 
leaned over the hives as they were opened, peered 
in, and asked innumerable questions. 

“What 's happened to you. Bob ?" said Alice at 
last. “You seem to want to learn the bee busi- 
ness." 

“Maybe," said Bob, enigmatically. “Now 
what's the best the bees ever do, Alice? How 


12 WILDERNESS HONEY 

much honey do you get from them, on an aver- 
age?’’ 

‘Well, this is my pet colony,” said the girl, 
raising the cover from the hive nearest her. 
Under the board cover was a canvas quilt, which 
she peeled up, revealing the tops of the combs, 
each in its wooden frame. At the disturbance, 
a yellow froth of bees boiled up from between the 
combs, but Alice unhesitatingly laid hold of one 
of the center combs and lifted it out for inspec- 
tion. It was covered on both sides with a thick 
layer of bees, crowded as closely as they could 
stand. There were some old veterans that had 
wintered over, with shiny, worn bodies and rag- 
ged wings; there were just-hatched bees, fluffy 
and yellow like young chickens; there were bees 
with yellow balls of pollen on their legs, looking 
for an empty cell to store the bee-bread. They 
all remained quiet, seeming but little discon- 
certed at being lifted so suddenly into the day- 
light. Only the bees near the top of the comb, 
where a little honey shone in the cells, dipped 
their heads and began to suck it up in haste. 
They felt that, if this strange earthquake was 


THE BEE FEVER 


13 

going to destroy the hive, they would at least save 
what they could. Over Alice’s fingers and bare 
wrists the bees crawled, but made no attempt to 
sting. They were the purest Italian breed and 
were almost as yellow as gold. 

^T paid a dollar and a half for this queen 
last year,” said Alice, ‘'and — look, there she is 
now.” 

She indicated a point about the center of the 
comb, where the queen, twice the length of a 
worker-bee but much more slender, was walking 
slowly and with dignity over the cells, looking 
into each one to see if it held anything. Finding 
one unoccupied, she gravely inserted the point of 
her long abdomen into it and deposited an egg. 
During this process she was attentively watched 
by her own guard of half a dozen bees, who kept 
their heads always pointed toward her, and prof- 
fered her honey on their tongues when she had 
finished. Day and night, Alice explained, this 
went on, a good queen often laying a couple of 
thousand eggs in twenty-four hours. These 
eggs, hatching in three weeks, mean a vast army 
of workers for the honey harvest. 


14 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


^This colony brought me in more than twenty- 
five dollars last year, all by itself,'' said Alice, 
putting the comb carefully back into the hive. 
“It gathered something over a hundred pounds 
of comb honey, worth twenty-five cents a pound. 
If one had a whole apiary like that! — ^but such 
things never happen. On the average, it 's a 
good colony that makes ten dollars' worth of 
honey, and less than that, of course, if you were 
running a large apiary and only getting whole- 
sale prices." 

“Well, I call that good enough," remarked Bob 
and said no more until that evening after supper, 
when he consented to bring out what was in his 
mind. 

“It was only a vague notion that I got in my 
head," he explained, “from what Alice said about 
wanting a hundred hives of bees. Perhaps 
there 's nothing in it yet. I don't know. But 
anyhow, there 's a fellow in our class who lives 
at a place called Morton, away up in northern 
Haliburton, and he mentioned to me about a 
month ago that a man up his way had a lot of 
bees for sale. I was n't especially interested 


THE BEE FEVER 15 

then, but when I went back to town last time, I 
thought of it and made further inquiries. Then 
I wrote to the owner. Then I felt as if I ought 
to go up and look into the thing, so I went.’’ 

‘‘You’ve been there? How many hives? 
What’s it like?” cried Alice and Carl to- 
gether. 

“Just got back. Well, it ’s about the wildest, 
roughest place I ever saw. The bee outfit is 
fourteen miles from the railroad, away back in 
the woods, and you can take your choice of driv- 
ing over a fearfully rocky trail or going up the 
river in a boat or tramping it. The bees are on 
a deserted backwoods farm, where nobody has 
lived for nearly a year. Goodness knows why 
anybody ever went there in the first place. But 
the bees are there all right — a hundred and eighty 
colonies, all packed outdoors in big sawdust cases. 
It was too cold to open the hives, but the bees 
were flying and seemed in good shape. Very 
few, if any, were dead. Then there’s a great 
heap of apparatus stored in the barn, a honey- 
extractor, empty combs, supers for comb-honey, 
smokers — a regular outfit, in fact.” 


i6 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


''Yes, but the price?” demanded Carl, anx- 
iously. 

"Fifteen hundred dollars.” 

"That settles it, then,” said Alice, with a dis- 
appointed sigh. 

"Oh, there ’s such a thing as buying on easy 
terms,” returned Bob. "Those bees belonged to 
a man who had no more sense than to try to start 
a farm among the rocks. I 'm certain he never 
made anything out of the land, but he surely did 
have the right instinct for beekeeping. He died 
sometime ago, his wife and children moved 
away, and I guess everything he owned was 
mortgaged, including the bees. Anyway, the 
whole outfit has come into the hands of the owner 
of the mortgage, who lives at Morton — a queer 
character, if there ever was one. He does n't 
know what to do with all those bees. Last sum- 
mer he hired a man to look after them, and the 
fellow either cheated or muddled, for old Farr — 
that 's his name — told me that there was n't much 
money in bees, and he thought of melting the 
combs all down for the wax. But he 'd be glad 
to sell them and take easy payments. 


THE BEE FEVER 


17 

’d let us keep them on the land rent-free, 
and he ’d take five hundred dollars cash down. 
When we sell the summer’s honey we pay an- 
other five hundred dollars, and the rest in one 
year, with interest at ten per cent., a chattel mort- 
gage on the bees and positive assurance that he ’ll 
sell us out if we don’t come down with the money 
on the required dates.” 

^'Could we handle a hundred and eighty col- 
onies? We’ve never had over a dozen here, 
you know,” said Carl, dubiously. 

‘T ’ll guarantee that we could handle them. 
I ’ll see to that !” cried Alice. ‘'But could we 
make the money?” 

‘T believe we could,” said Bob, earnestly. 
"The woods up there are full of solid masses of 
wild raspberry thickets for miles around, where 
the timber has been cut or burned over. Noth- 
ing yields honey like the raspberry bloom, they 
tell me. There ’s lots of basswood, too. 
Should n’t we be able to get a hundred pounds of 
honey to the hive, Alice?” 

"It sounds to me as if we ought to. It depends 
on the weather, of course.” 


i8 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


‘Well, at ten cents a pound wholesale, that 
makes eighteen hundred dollars that we could 
count on this year, and next year we should get 
far more, for the bees would have increased. 
Why,’’ he exclaimed, growing enthusiastic, “I 
don’t see how we could possibly lose on it!” 

“No clover up there, I suppose?” asked Carl. 

“No, nor grass either. Nothing much but 
rocks and sand, hemlock and jack-pine and birch, 
wild raspberries, and little lakes, and a deep river 
that runs right through the bee farm.” 

“We ’d camp out there 1” exclaimed Alice. 

“No, there ’s a log-house that we can live in. 
But I ’ll tell you one thing — living up there 
would n’t cost us much. I must have seen fifty 
partridges on my way in, and the man that drove 
me told me that there are lots of deer, and now 
and then a bear. Once in a while a moose strays 
down from the North, and there must be ducks 
on the river. I know it ’s swarming with trout. 
Of course we ’d be taking a chance on the season. 
It ’s generally either a feast or a famine with the 
bees — a big crop or a failure — ^but what do you 
say?” 


THE BEE FEVER 


19 

'Take the chance! Take it!'' cried Alice, 
jumping up in excitement. 

"It does seem too good a thing to lose,’’ said 
Carl. "But we hardly want to exile ourselves 
up there in the north woods for years, do we ?” 

"Why not? I think it would be glorious!” 
said his sister. "But we don’t have to. The 
bees need to be looked after for only four or five 
months of the year. They ’ve been up there for 
over a year, with hardly any attention at all, and 
they ’ve got on all right. We can leave there in 
October, sell our honey, and come back here, or 
go to the city, or do anything — take a trip to Eu- 
rope, if we ’ve had a good season. Carl can go 
to the university. Don’t you see that it ’s the 
very thing for us? It’s the solution of all our 
difficulties.” 

"The backwoods all summer, and the city in 
winter! It would give us some variety in life, 
anyway,” said Carl. 

"Yes, and there ’s no way of making money 
so nice as keeping bees. It ’s sweet and clean 
and honest. It ’s kid-glove work, too, not muddy 
and dirty, like farming. And it ’s all scientific 


20 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


and fascinating. Every colony has its own pecul- 
iar nature that has to be studied. Some you 
can pet, and some you have to bully. No one 
could ever make any success with bees who 
didn’t feel the fascination and wasn’t full of 
the love of the thing.” 

‘Well, you ’ve got love of it enough to supply 
the rest of us, Alice, though I believe we ’d all 
like it,” said Bob. “But we must n’t forget that 
we can’t do anything without Mr. Ferguson’s 
consent. We ’re infants in the eyes of the law, 
and he ’s our guardian.” 

It was too late to go to see Mr. Ferguson that 
evening, but they talked over the scheme till 
nearly midnight. They went into all the details 
and made calculations of their probable profits, 
till they had worked themselves up into a high 
stage of enthusiasm. As Bob said, it hardly 
seemed possible to lose. With a hundred and 
eighty colonies of bees in a good honey district, 
they were sure to make some money ; but they be- 
gan to feel desperately afraid that Mr. Ferguson 
could not be made to see it in the same light. 

The next morning they went to see him in a 


THE BEE FEVER 


21 


body, primed with arguments. To their delight, 
however, they found him by no means obdurate. 
Their guardian was an elderly, shrewd farmer, 
who saw clearly that the store could never be 
made to pay, and he had been pondering for some 
time upon the best investment for the orphans’ in- 
heritance. He promptly advised them to make 
the best bargain with the Elliott Brothers that 
they could, but the idea of the apiary came upon 
him as a shock. 

‘'Fifteen hundred dollars worth of bees!” he 
said doubtfully. “A pretty big order, ain’t it?” 

Alice and Carl plunged at him with arguments 
and examples. Mr. Ferguson, however, knew 
the success that Alice had made with her bees, 
and he was willing to listen, questioning them 
closely about probable crops, prices, and risks. 
He seemed in a fair way to be convinced, but re- 
fused to give any answer at once, saying that he 
was going to get the opinion of a cousin of his 
near Toronto, who kept bees. This must have 
been satisfactory, for within a few days he an- 
nounced his approval of the enterprise. 

Bob immediately went to Woodville and closed 


22 WILDERNESS HONEY 

the deal with the Elliotts. Now that their dream 
was changed to reality, it was something of a 
wrench to the young Harmans, for the store 
seemed like an inseparable part of home itself. 
But they had made up their minds and they went 
through with it. Bob remained at home a little 
longer to help take the inventory of stock and 
complete the formal transfer; and then suddenly 
there was a new sign over the door that had been 
'‘Harman’s’’ for more than fifty years. 

They also sold the ten acres of land. The 
house and the garden and orchard they kept, for 
only the direst necessity would have made them 
part with that. There was still a mortgage of 
$800 on it, but the payments were easy and might 
be allowed to stand. When all their other lia- 
bilities were paid up, they found themselves with 
a capital of slightly over one thousand dollars, 
which was a little more than they had expected. 

"When we ’ve paid our first five hundred on 
the bees,” said Carl, "we ’ll have nearly six hun- 
dred left. That will be ample for us to live on 
till the honey crop is sold, and after that there ’ll 
be money to burn !” 


THE BEE FEVER 


23 

Some of this capital, however, had to go to- 
ward Bob’s expenses in Toronto. It was of the 
utmost importance that his studies should not 
suffer, for he was virtually sure of a well-paid 
position after his graduation. 

‘'But I can take a week or ten days off,” he 
said, “and come up and help you get started. 
I’m well ahead with my work. We needn’t 
move up there till the middle of May. My 
exams, will be all over in June, and then I can 
come up for the busy season with the bees. That 
will be plenty of time, for the raspberries don’t 
blossom nearly so early up there as they do far- 
ther south.” 

The next thing was to buy the bees, and this 
was arranged through Mr. Ferguson and a law- 
yer at Morton. They paid five hundred dollars 
down, and gave a mortgage on the apiary for the 
rest, covering whatever number of hives of bees 
it might contain. This was a shrewd wording, 
if not a tricky one, for it not only released the 
seller from any responsibility as to the number 
of living colonies in the yard, but it also covered 
any increase that might be made afterward. The 


24 WILDERNESS HONEY 

bees were not to be moved from the place with- 
out permission, and they were to pay the sec- 
ond installment on August i, by which time, they 
calculated, the honey crop would be sold. 

Now that all was settled, Alice and Carl were 
impatient to be off. It was hard to see Elliott’s 
sign over Harman’s store, to see the old goods 
sold off at slaughter prices, and to see the new 
paint, woodwork, and fresh stock that the old 
place was getting. Alice declared that she would 
go all the way to Woodville rather than buy any- 
thing next door. It was still early, however, to 
go into the north woods, but, toward the end of 
April, Carl paid a flying visit to their new prop- 
erty and came back full of enthusiasm. 

hadn’t time to look into many hives,” he 
said, ‘'but I counted one hundred and twenty 
colonies carrying in pollen in great shape. The 
maples must be coming in flower, but everything 
looks pretty cold and dismal up there still. The 
season seems fully a month later than here. I 
looked into a few of the rest of the colonies. 
Some were flying a little, and I found only three 
dead ones. On the whole, I think they ’re coming 


THE BEE FEVER 


25 

into first-class condition, and I believe we Ve got 
a bargain/' 

Alice was more impatient than ever at this 
news, but a week of cold, backward weather fol- 
lowed; there were many preparations to make, 
and it was another two weeks before they finally 
made ready to leave for the North. It was de- 
cided that Carl should go a couple of days ahead 
of the others and try to make their quarters some- 
what habitable. Alice was to follow with Bob, 
and he once more interrupted his studies for a 
week to come up and help with the last prepara- 
tions. 

With great care and consultation they got to- 
gether an outfit that was slim for housekeeping 
or elaborate for camping, as one might choose to 
regard it. Alice selected blankets, pillows, cook- 
ing utensils, and tableware. Bob packed his fish- 
ing tackle and his rifle, a good 38.55 caliber re- 
peater, with plenty of cartridges. They took two 
hams and a side of bacon from their own home- 
cured stock, beans, two bags of potatoes, flour, 
sugar, and other groceries, together with several 
large loaves of fresh bread that Alice baked her- 


26 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


self. Another package had to be made of gar- 
dening implements; a hoe, a rake, and a spade, 
and an abundance of different seeds. If she was 
going back to the land, Alice said, she was going 
to do it thoroughly. 

An ax was needed, too, and a sharp hatchet, a 
saw and hammer and assorted nails. In fact, 
there seemed to be no end to the things to be taken 
— necessaries, all of them. One thing after an- 
other was forgotten and remembered at the last 
minute — lamps and a washboard, soap, books, a 
looking-glass, a pepper-box. In the end, they 
had three huge packing-cases, and several small 
packages. Alice had cherished a dim hope of be- 
ing able to take a crate of her favorite White 
Leghorn hens to supply them with fresh eggs, 
but she was forced to give that plan up. 

They took the tools from the home apiary, but 
the dozen hives of bees they left where they stood. 
On the last day Alice equalized them in strength 
and put top stories of empty combs on all of 
them, so that they could be left to themselves in 
comparative safety. 

Carl then left for Morton, taking with him a 


THE BEE FEVER 


27 

small trunk containing a supply of cooked food, 
an ax, a hammer, his shot-gun and his fishing 
rod. Alice and Bob gave him forty-eight hours’ 
start, and then shipped their freight and took the 
train for the North. 

At leaving, they both felt a flood of homesick 
regret and misgiving. Harman’s Corners was 
the only home they had ever known, and Alice’s 
lips quivered, when she looked back from the 
buggy as they drove to the station. Bob him- 
self felt a sudden doubt as to whether he had been 
right in proposing and urging the speculation. 
A bad season, a little hard luck, and they would 
be utterly stranded and penniless. 

But these forebodings gradually evaporated 
as the train went northward, skirting Lake Sim- 
coe, crossing the Muskoka country, running 
hourly deeper into the rocky wilds. It was a 
slow local train and took more than half a day to 
make the journey, so that it was late in the after- 
noon when they at last stepped out upon the board 
platform of the little Morton station. 

A sharp chill in the air reminded them that they 
had come a hundred miles due north. Morton 


28 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


had once been a flourishing lumber town, operat- 
ing four sawmills, but the pine had long since 
been cut away, and the place had greatly declined, 
like Harman’s Corners. It seemed to consist of 
only a couple of dozen houses, two or three stores, 
and a frame hotel. The dark evergreen forest 
apparently came close up to the town in every di- 
rection, but Bob informed his sister that a few de- 
termined farmers tried to get a living out of the 
rocky soil, and several French half-breed fami- 
lies lived near the village, contriving to support 
existence on a little lumbering, a little trapping, 
and a little guiding. In November the district 
woke to temporary life, with the influx of deer 
hunters from farther south. 

It was much too late in the day for Bob and 
Alice to think of driving to the apiary, so they 
went to the little hotel, where, at this season, 
they were the only guests. After engaging their 
rooms, they proceeded to look up Mr. David Farr, 
who held the mortgage on the bees. 

They found him in the post-office and store 
which he owned. He was postmaster, and also, 
as they learned later, justice of the peace, clerk of 



It was not without a secret feeling of misgiving that Alice and Bob 
bade farewell to Harman’s Corners 



THE BEE FEVER 31 

the township, and road inspector. Besides be- 
ing the leading merchant of the town, he bought 
furs and ginseng, dealt in local mortgages, occa- 
sionally traded in timber, and had an interest in 
a mica mine that was trying to succeed near the 
village. This last speculation seemed to indicate 
a sort of sporting spirit, which was perhaps what 
had induced him to lend money on so risky a 
security as a yard of bees, even at ten per cent, 
interest. He was a little, withered man, more 
than sixty years of age, with white hair, a strag- 
gly beard, gimlet eyes, and a not unkindly 
mouth. 

‘Well, here 's the young people that ’s bought 
the bees,'' he said, wrinkling up his face into a 
dry smile. “You expect to make a fortune outer 
'em, hey, young lady? Well, I don't say as you 
won’t. But you won't get what you expect to 
get. Folks never does, not in anything." 

“Oh, we don't expect much, Mr. Farr," said 
Alice, laughing. 

“Now, don't tell me that. You know you do. 
But it 's always best to expect nothing and then 
be surprised and thankful. Now whenever 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


32 

you ’re in town, just come and see me, and I ’ll do 
what I can to see you fixed right.” 

'‘1 ’m sure you ’re very kind — ” Bob began. 

‘'No, I ain’t, neither. Don’t you look for no 
kindness from me. I want to help you to get 
along, so ’s you can pay me my money. Kind- 
ness and business is separate things, and I al- 
ways keep ’em separate. As I told you, young 
man, if you don’t live up to the terms of the 
mortgage I ’ll seize you up the minute the law 
allows me. Now you both come along home with 
me and have supper.” 

They had supper with Mr. Farr and his wife 
and slept at the hotel. Next morning they found 
their freight boxes awaiting them at the station, 
and hired a team to haul them to the apiary. It 
was the same driver who had taken Carl out two 
days before, and he mentioned the fact that Carl 
had borrowed his dog to keep him company till 
the others came. As they were having their 
boxes and bales loaded on the wagon, Mr. Farr 
strolled up to see them start, and he again im- 
pressed upon them his intention of being abso- 


THE BEE FEVER 


33 

lutely relentless in case they failed to keep to the 
strict terms of the sale. 

“And the old fellow means it, too,’’ said Bob, 
when they were off. “He ’ll sell us up in a min- 
ute if we don’t produce the cash on the first of 
August. I fancy we need n’t fear him, but what 
a wretched old skinflint he is!” 

“I don’t know,” said Alice, laughing. “I 
rather like him.” 

It was fourteen miles to the bee farm, and after 
the first mile from the village the road grew 
terrible. In some places it was of corduroy logs. 
It went up and down steep hills, and for long 
stretches it was strewn with large, loose rocks, 
which made Alice’s tinware clash and jangle in 
the boxes as the wagon lurched along. It was 
impossible to go faster than a slow walk, and 
even then the riding was so rough that Bob and 
Alice got down and walked for much of the way. 

The May morning was sunny and warm, and 
the highland air sparkling. The road ran be- 
tween dense, tangled masses of second-growth 
spruce and hemlock, now and then broken by a 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


34 

wide burned slash, thick with raspberry canes. 
These were just beginning to grow green, and the 
young beekeepers looked at them with great in- 
terest, for their fortunes depended on these 
prickly jungles. 

Now and then they caught a glimpse of a small 
lake. Several times ruffed grouse rose with a 
roar and thunder behind the screen of evergreens, 
and once their driver stopped to point out the 
slender, delicate hoof-mark of a deer on a bit of 
sandy road. 

They had left Morton at eight in the morning. 
It was after noon, and they were hungry, and 
tired with walking, and sore with riding, when 
the driver pointed with his whip across the hem- 
locks. 

The trail curved suddenly. There was a 
desolate, stump-filled clearing, with the squat 
forms of several log buildings at the other end. 
All about them stood rows and rows of large, 
rude-looking boxes painted dark red, and above 
the creaking of the wagon they caught a deep, 
distant roar of insect wings. 

‘mr cried Alice, “the beesT 


^ CHAPTER II 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 

A t first they saw nothing of Carl, but as the 
wagon lumbered up through the stumpy 
clearing, be came dashing around the cabin with 
a whoop of delight. He was carrying his shot- 
gun and was accompanied by a fox-terrier, which 
rushed to the wagon, barking loudly with joy. 

‘‘Hurrah cried Carl. “I Ve been looking 
for you all day. Here ’s your dog,’’ he added to 
the wagoner. “Thanks. He ’s been a great 
help to me.” 

“Carl !” Alice screamed. “What in the world 
is the matter with your face ?” 

“Have n’t been fighting with Jack, have you?” 
inquired the driver. “You and him both look as 
if you ’d been up against it.” 

Carl grinned rather sheepishly. His face was 
badly scratched. A long strip of sticking-plaster 
extended from his ear to his chin, and there was 

35 


36 WILDERNESS HONEY 

a crisscross of red lines across his cheek. His 
hands were marked too; one thumb was tied up 
in a rag, and the white back of the fox-terrier 
showed half a dozen deep, fresh scratches. 

‘‘Oh, nothing,’’ he said, hastily. “Only skin- 
deep scratches. Nothing but a bad scare, really. 
Got our freight all right? Want something to 
eat?” he added, winking furiously at his brother 
as a hint to drop the subject of his wounds. 

Bob took the hint, nudged Alice, and, though 
they were both full of curiosity, they said no 
more, but busied themselves with taking the load 
off the wagon and hauling the boxes inside the 
house. 

“Oh, what a delightful place!” cried Alice, at 
the doorway. “And how frightfully dirty!” 

“Dirty?” returned Carl, indignantly. “You 
would n’t say that if you ’d seen it when I came. 
The whole place was full of dead leaves and 
rubbish. The door had stood open all winter, I 
guess. I ’ve been cleaning it out ever since I got 
here, and I call it in pretty fair shape, consider- 
ing. Why, the chimney was full of dead leaves 
and old birds’ nests. There was a family of 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 37 
squirrels living in the roof, and down under the 
floor there was — well, I'll tell you later,’’ he 
added in a whisper. 

^T don’t want to wait,” complained Alice, peer- 
ing curiously about the place that was to be their 
home for the next few months. 

The building was about twenty feet wide and 
thirty long, and was divided across the middle 
by a partition of boards. One of the rooms so 
formed was evidently the main living-room and 
kitchen ; the other was subdivided into two small 
bedrooms. Each of these contained, by way of 
furniture, a rough wooden bunk and a large shelf 
fastened to the wall, which might serve as a dress- 
ing-table. 

The large room had a big fireplace of rough 
stone, with a fire that Carl had lighted still 
smouldering. The floor was of planks, and at 
one point stained and splintered, as if by a gun- 
shot. It had been a rather well-made cabin, and 
the logs were chinked with lime plaster, but much 
of the chinking had fallen out, and the cracks 
yawned wide. There were two windows in the 
larger room, and one in each of the small ones. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


38 

with a good deal of their glass remaining. A 
ladder ascended to a black hole in the ceiling that 
formed the entrance to a loft under the rafters. 
Dust and soot were on the log walls, and a de- 
cided odor of smoke clung about the whole place. 

''Everything is all right now,’’ Carl assured 
them. "And the bees are in splendid shape. 
I ’ve been looking at them. Now I know this 
man wants to start back to Morton as soon as he 
has rested his horses a little, so as to get home 
before dark, and I propose that we all have some- 
thing to eat.” 

"Good idea !” said Bob. "I ’ll open the box 
that has our provisions in it.” 

"Hold on. I ’ve got something better than 
that !” cried his brother. "Just come with me.” 

And he led the way around the cabin to an old 
rain-water barrel that stood beneath a trough 
from the eaves. It was half full of water, and, 
as they bent over it, there was a swirl and a flash 
of orange below the surface. 

"Twenty-seven trout!” said Carl. "I caught 
’em all in about an hour and a half this morning, 
and put ’em here to keep alive till you came. 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


39 

One of ’em must weigh four pounds. I tell you, 
we won’t starve here till the river runs dry.” 

'Tried trout and bacon! Splendid!” ex- 
claimed Alice. "Get out about three pounds of 
those fish, Carl, and clean them. I ’ll build up 
the fire, while Bob gets out the frying-pan and all 
the eatables he can find.” 

In less than an hour they had their first wil- 
derness meal, which their appetites would have 
made delicious, even if Alice had been a worse 
cook than she was. The fried trout, rolled in 
meal, were excellent ; so was the bacon and home- 
made bread ; and if there was a shortage of forks 
and plates, and neither chairs nor table, nobody 
minded it at all. 

As soon as they had , finished, the driver 
started back toward Morton, followed by the fox- 
terrier. The three apiarists were left alone on 
their new kingdom, and Alice at once fixed ex- 
pectant eyes upon Carl. 

"Now tell us about it,” she demanded. "What 
on earth happened to you before we came, and 
what was the horrible thing you found under the 
floor of the house ?” 


40 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


Carl smiled in the same uneasy fashion as be- 
fore, and touched his wounded face tenderly. 

''I did n’t want that fellow to hear it,” he ex- 
plained, ''for it ’s a queer sort of thing, and very 
likely he ’d have thought it was a lie. It ’s rather 
a joke on me, too, though it did n’t seem funny 
at the time. I don’t think I was ever so scared in 
my life. 

"We were late in getting off from Morton, and 
had delays on the way, — one of the tires came off, 
— so that it was nearly sunset when we got here. 
It was a chilly, dark evening, and looked like 
rain. The old shanty was about the dreariest- 
looking place I ever saw. I ’d seen it before, but 
it looked different in the sunshine. The door 
was standing open, half-blocked by a great drift 
of leaves and rubbish. The chimney would n’t 
draw; it was choked with birds’ nests, and, of 
course, there was n’t a stick of furniture in the 
place. 

"The driver was in a hurry to start back, for 
he wanted to get home before midnight, and he 
helped me to carry my trunk inside, and got ready 
to go. I did n’t like it ; I had n’t any taste at all 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 41 

for being left there all alone, and I proposed that 
he leave Jack, the terrier you saw, to keep me 
company. I knew you would be coming out in a 
couple of days, and the dog could be sent back. 

^'So we tied Jack up in the house, and the man 
went off. I cleared away the leaves so that the 
door would shut and got in some firewood for the 
night and poked out the chimney with a pole, so 
that I could make a fire without being choked 
with smoke. Then I opened the trunk and got 
out the grub that I ’d brought. 

‘‘A bright fire made all the difference in the 
world, and the house did n’t seem so lonely. Jack 
was awfully interested in a broken hole in the 
floor, and I thought a groundhog probably had its 
den under there. I called him and untied him, 
and we ate bread and cold ham, sitting on my 
trunk in front of the fire, and were quite com- 
fortable. 

"‘All my bones were sore with the rough ride 
out from Morton, and I felt sleepy. It was n’t 
long after dark when I made up a pile of dead 
leaves and old spruce twigs from one of the bunks 
in the bedroom, and lay down on my blanket. I 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


42 

was tired, but I could n’t go to sleep. I felt 
nervous and on the alert. I fancied I heard 
something moving under the house, and Jack kept 
startling me by constantly bristling up and growl- 
ing. I was awfully glad I had him, though, and 
I was glad I had my gun. I had it standing 
loaded against the trunk.” 

‘‘Goodness ! I would n’t have spent the night 
alone in this place, not for — for a million hives 
of bees,” said Alice, shuddering. 

“Well, I don’t know that I would have either, if 
there had been any chance to get away,” Carl ad- 
mitted. “But I had to stay, and at last I did go 
to sleep. I must have slept soundly, too, for I 
woke in a kind of daze at hearing Jack bark. The 
fire had almost burned out; there was just a 
glimmer from the coals. I couldn’t see any- 
thing, but off in the corner Jack was barking fu- 
riously. 

“I thought he had found a rat. I was sleepy 
and cross and called him to come back. He must 
have thought I was encouraging him, for I heard 
him make a rush. There was an awful snarling, 
and a yowl like a scared cat’s, and a wild rough- 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 43 
and-tumble scrimmage across the floor in the 
dark. I jumped up, wide awake, you can bet, 
just as Jack broke away and rushed back to me. 
He seemed to have been whipped. He was whin- 
ing and trembling all over. 

‘Then from the other side of the room I heard 
a sort of purring growl, exactly like that of a 
fighting tom-cat, rising into a squall every few 
bars. I could n't see anything, but after a while 
I made out a pale greenish pair of spots, like eyes. 

‘T felt pretty sure that it must be a lynx that 
had strayed into the shanty somehow, and now 
that the shock was over I was n't so much scared. 
A lynx is n't very savage, nor very hard to kill, 
they say. I reached around for the gun, and 
when I cocked it with a click the beast squalled 
again. I aimed square between the shining eyes 
and pulled down. 

“The flash half blinded me. The place seemed 
full of smoke, and Jack charged through it, bark- 
ing. I heard something rush across the floor, 
and Jack followed it into the little room. 

“I wanted a light badly. I tried to poke up the 
fire, but it was too nearly out. I lighted a match. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


44 

The floor was torn up with shot and spattered 
with blood, just as you see it, but there was n^t any 
dead lynx. I got a glimpse of Jack at the door of 
the bedroom, barking and looking back, and then 
my match went out. 

'T put in another shell and lighted another 
match. Jack ventured further into the room 
when I came to the door. I could n’t see any- 
thing, and stepped inside. The match burned 
out and dropped, and I was feeling for another 
when something hit me on the shoulder — some- 
thing alive. 

‘Tt was like a small flying tiger. Before I 
knew it I had got this rip down my cheek, and 
then two or three more. I felt the soft, cool fur 
against my neck, and it ’s a wonder it did n’t rip 
my throat open.” 

''What on earth was it?” cried Alice, excitedly. 

"I did n’t know myself,” returned the narrator. 
"It was too small for a lynx, but I was fairly 
cowed by its ferocity. I grabbed it and tried to 
throw it off. It bit me half through the thumb, 
but I managed to tear it loose from my coat and 
fling it down. It mixed up with Jack; there was 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


45 

an awful howling, but I was making for the door. 

‘T did n't stop till I was outside, and Jack 
was n't long after me. He 'd been beaten again. 
It was pitch-dark and raining a little, and I cooled 
down, and the rain washed the blood off my face. 

'T thought at first that I would n't go into that 
house again till daylight, but I gradually got my 
nerve back. I wanted to find out what sort of 
beast it was that was living in our cabin. Be- 
sides, I did n't want to spend the rest of the night 
outdoors in the rain. It was n't quite one o'clock. 
I looked at my watch with a match." 

'^You might have gone to the barn," Bob sug- 
gested. 

‘Tt never occurred to me. Anyhow, I ven- 
tured back to the cabin again. Everything was 
quiet. I got to the fireplace and made a blaze of 
dead leaves. It lighted up the whole place, but 
there was no sort of animal in sight, though I 
could n't see much into the small room. 

''So I made up a torch of spruce branches and 
tiptoed up to the bedroom door again, with my 
gun ready and the torch in front. Jack charged 
in ahead of me. I could see well this time. The 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


46 

snarling growl began again, and there on the 
shelf beside the head of the bunk was a cat/' 

^'What, a wildcat?" Bob exclaimed. 

‘Tame wild cat. No, I mean a wild, tame cat. 
Anyway, it was wild enough for anything. Its 
fur stood on end all over its body, making it look 
almost huge. Its ears twitched ; its tail snapped ; 
its eyes fairly blazed ; and it kept up that singing 
snarl all the time. It seemed to be paying more 
attention to the dog than to me, and Jack took 
precious good care not to come too close. 

“At the next glance I saw another cat, a Mal- 
tese one, lying dead on the floor. That must have 
been the one I shot at. Then it struck me that 
I was up against a whole family, and I looked 
around for more of them. There was another 
in a dark corner, with its back arched and its tail 
puffed like a feather boa. But that one seemed 
to want to hide more than fight, and I could n't 
see any more. 

“I could n't help grinning to think how scared 
I had been by a cat. These brutes must have be- 
longed to the last people who lived here, and they 
had been running wild ever since. I did n't want 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


47 

to shoot them. I like cats myself, but not that 
kind, and I had to get them out of the house for 
the sake of peace and quiet the rest of the night.’’ 

‘T expect the poor wretches were half starved. 
You might have tamed them, Carl,” Alice sug- 
gested. 

'T ’d like to have seen you calling ‘Kitty, kitty,’ 
to that snarling young tiger perched on the shelf. 
No, I threw lumps of wood and bark. When 
that did no good, I took a loaded shell out of my 
pocket and threw it as hard as I could. That hit 
the beast on the back, and it made a leap and 
lighted square on top of Jack. He had come up 
too close. 

“For a minute all I could see was a tangle of 
white and gray fur, spinning like a wheel, mak- 
ing every imaginable sort of dog and cat fighting 
noise. The second cat joined in with its noise, 
and the uproar was something awful. But Jack 
was no match for the cat. He broke away with 
a howl, and rushed behind me. 

“The cat jumped after him, blind with rage. 
I kicked at it, and the beast fastened on my trous- 
ers, scratching and biting like a demon. I hit it 


48 WILDERNESS HONEY 

with the gun-butt, and beat it with the torch. 
Fire flew in all directions. The cat let go at that, 
but a lot of dry leaves on the floor caught fire 
and flashed up, and in a moment the whole place 
was full of smoke. 

'T rushed out again, with Jack in front. At 
the door I stumbled over something soft that 
snarled at me. When I was fairly outside I 
looked back. The small room seemed all on fire, 
and I began to wonder what Mr. Farr would say 
if I burned his cabin down on the first night. 
But the flame was only from light stuff ; it did n’t 
catch on the logs, and in a few minutes the place 
was dark again. 

‘T felt pretty certain that the cats were driven 
out, but I had no idea of going back to see. I 
knew when I was licked, and I think Jack felt the 
same way. Then I remembered the barn and I 
stumbled down there through the beehives. It 
was a pretty rough place, but it was dry and there 
were n’t any cats. In the morning I went back 
to the cabin and cleaned up the mess.” 

''Find any more cats there?” Bob inquired. 

"Only the dead one.” 


49 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 

‘What was it like?” 

“Just a big, gray tom-cat. The biggest I ever 
saw, though. It must have weighed twenty 
pounds. The fur was badly scorched off, or I 
think I ’d have skinned it.” 

“Cats go wild very easily,” Bob remarked. 
“It ’s common enough for a cat to take to the 
woods. They Te never more than half-tamed 
animals at the best.” 

“It 's no wonder the poor brutes were savage, 
after living here for a year, and all through the 
winter too,” said Alice. “If I ever see any more 
of them I 'll try to tame them.” 

“I wish you luck,” said Carl, ironically. “But 
these cats were n’t poor brutes. They ’d been 
living on the fat of the land. I found the hole 
through the floor into their den underneath, and 
I took up a plank. There were gnawed bones of 
rabbits and partridges there, and all sorts of 
game. Very likely a litter of kittens had been 
raised there. If they don’t get killed, there ’ll 
soon be a new breed of wild animal up in these 
woods.” 

“You had an awful time, Carl,” said Bob. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


50 

''And I ’m sure we 're properly grateful to you 
for clearing out the wild beasts before we came 
up. But you really ought not to have come here 
alone. I never thought of danger, but there 
might have been a lynx or bear in the cabin." 

"Nothing could have been worse than what 
there was. However, my scratches did n’t go 
very deep, and I had some sticking-plaster in my 
trunk. Never mind the cats. Let ’s go out and 
look at the bees." 

"Yes, let ’s see them, and then I want to explore 
the whole place !" exclaimed Alice. 

Both the boys had examined the bees before, 
but this was Alice’s first good look at the apiary, 
for there had been time for only a hasty glance 
before dinner. They walked down the rows of 
hives, through clouds of flying bees that were too 
busy to be bad-tempered. The hives were ar- 
ranged in long rows between the house and the 
barn, facing the southern sun, and there were 
seven of these rows of great, red, winter cases 
holding two or three hives each. As far as out- 
side appearances went, the bees appeared to be 
in good condition. They were flying thickly 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 51 
from the small winter entrance-holes, and com- 
ing in by scores with balls of greenish-yellow 
willow pollen on their legs. This profuse pollen- 
gathering is always a good sign. It shows that 
there is a queen in the hive, and a big brood to be 
fed on this 'Tee-bread,’’ and this means a multi- 
tude of workers for the still-distant harvest. 

Alice lifted the heavy cover of one of the cases. 
It was packed with sawdust to the height of the 
enclosed hives, and on the top of each of the two 
colonies was placed a large, thick cushion of bur- 
lap, packed with chaff, to keep the warmth down. 

Alice raised the cushion and peeled back the 
canvas quilt covering the frames. A gush of 
bees boiled up, taking wing instantly and circling 
about with an angry "biz-z!” Two or three 
dashed against the girl’s face, but did not actually 
sting, for a bee must be driven to absolute frenzy 
before it makes up its mind to sting and die. But 
Alice closed the hive hastily, and they all moved 
on to a more peaceful quarter. 

"These bees are blacks and nervous in their 
temper,” said Carl, laughing. "You can’t han- 
dle them like your Italians.” 


52 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


'We ’ll tame them/’ Alice returned. "But did 
you notice the shape that colony was in. It was 
boiling full of bees from one side to the other. 
Black or not, it ’ll get ten dollars’ worth of honey 
if there is any bloom in the woods this summer.” 

"Oh, lots of them are like that,” Carl assured 
her. "See how they ’re carrying pollen. But 
we must have a regular overhauling, — open every 
hive and go through it to see if they have honey 
enough to carry them through the spring, and 
what kind of queens they have, and everything. 
We must keep track of the internal condition of 
each one.” 

"What! The state of every single hive?” ex- 
claimed Bob. "Why, nobody could remember 
it.” 

"If you ’re going to be an apiarist. Bob, you 
must use the right terms,” corrected Alice, laugh- 
ing. "Colony, not hive. The hive is merely the 
box that the colony lives in. Oh, yes, a good bee- 
keeper knows the condition of every colony. It 
makes it easier to have them all numbered, and 
then a record can be kept in a note-book. We 
should do that.” 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 53 

‘Tine training for bad memories, I should 
think,” Bob remarked. “Now down here in the 
barn is all the miscellaneous bee-stuff. Let ’s 
have a look at it and see if we ’ve got value for 
our money.” 

The barn was some thirty yards from the 
house. It was also built of logs and was not very 
much bigger. Although small, however, it was 
probably large enough to hold any crops that farm 
ever produced. Part of it was partitioned off, 
floored with planks, and seemed to have been used 
as a stable. In this compartment was piled an 
enormous, disorderly heap of bee-supplies: ex- 
tracting and comb-honey supers, empty combs 
and frames, several galvanized honey tanks, an 
extractor, some worn-out veils, a smoker, and an 
immense lot of odds and ends. 

“I pulled this stuff around considerably when 
I was looking over it yesterday,” said Carl. 
“That ’s why it ’s in such a mess now. Seems to 
me we got our money’s worth, if quantity counts 
for anything.” 

“A lot of it is probably worthless. Once it 
was a good working outfit, I suppose,” said Bob, 


54 WILDERNESS HONEY 

as they contemplated the mass. ''But it 'll all 
have to be overhauled, sorted, and cleaned up. 
That 'll be work for you when I 'm gone." 

"Work for a week, I should think," said Alice. 
"But I 'll enjoy it. I expect to find all sorts of 
surprises in that pile. We 'll come back to it 
again, anyway, but what we really must do first 
is to set our house in order. Remember, we 
have n't a stick of furniture." 

"Oh, Bob and I can soon knock together some 
benches and tables," remarked Carl. "There are 
some good pine boards here in the barn. We 
have bunks to sleep in, and we can put up some 
more shelves, and that 's all we 'll need, for we 'll 
be outdoors virtually all the time when we are n't 
asleep." 

But before attempting to do anything with the 
house, they explored the rest of their domain, or 
part of it, for they did not attempt to penetrate 
far into the woods. The farm was said to con- 
tain eighty acres, but not twenty were cleared, 
and none of it was fenced. In fact, the new ten- 
ants never did know exactly where the boundaries 
of their property were. The forest hemmed 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


55 

them in ; as far as they knew, they had no neigh- 
bors nearer than Morton, and they could not im- 
agine why the original settler had even chosen 
that remote and sterile place for a homestead. 

‘Trobably he did n't know how bad the land 
was until he cleared it," Bob suggested. 

About twenty yards behind the cabin was the 
White River, lined with blossoming willows and 
alders, now full of humming bees. The river 
was deep and nearly a hundred feet wide. It ran 
down to Morton and would have afforded an ex- 
cellent water-route to the village, if they had had 
a boat. 

The settlers had cleared ten acres in front of 
the house, removed half the stumps, and had ap- 
parently tried to grow oats there. Nearer the 
house was a spot that had been a vegetable gar- 
den; a few onions were still sprouting wild. 
Nearer the house, to Alice's joy, hollyhocks were 
coming up, and a bed of hardy ribbon grass per- 
sisted. 

After this inspection, work commenced in ear- 
nest. They built a great fire on the hearth, and 
Alice filled all the available pots and pans with 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


56 

water to heat. Meanwhile the boys brought up 
the lumber from the barn, got out their tools, and 
gave themselves to furniture-making. It was a 
busy afternoon, and by evening they were all dead 
tired, but the cabin was transformed. 

Alice had swept and scrubbed it and cleaned 
down the walls and ceiling. The holes in the 
walls were closed with fresh chinking of clay and 
moss, and the broken windows partly protected 
with pieces of board. Carl and Bob had con- 
structed several stout benches, a table that was 
strong and solid if not beautiful, and had put up 
shelves on the wall. A brilliant fire of pine- 
knots flamed in the clean fireplace, and a few gay 
lithographs decorated the wall. For further 
decoration, their guns, rods, and saucepans hung 
beside the chimney. 

The small rooms had been cleaned out likewise. 
The low, board bunks were filled with fresh 
spruce and balsam twigs, warranted to cure the 
worst insomnia, and the blankets and pillows 
were spread over these forest mattresses. A 
small bench completed the bedroom furniture, 
for, in true pioneer fashion, they were all to wash 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 57 

in a tin basin on a wooden block outside the door. 
Here too was the family mirror and comb, but 
Alice had a small private looking-glass in her 
room. 

The boys promised to construct some kind of 
pantry or cupboard for the provisions as soon as 
they had the time, but it was too late to do any 
more that afternoon. They contemplated the re- 
sult of their labors with great satisfaction, and 
really the old cabin looked like a very homelike 
place. Trout and bacon and eggs were sizzling 
in the frying-pan; the teakettle hummed, and 
when the supper was finally spread upon the new 
plank table they all attacked it with the appetites 
of true foresters. 

They helped Alice to clear away and wash the 
dishes and built up a blazing fire, for the evening 
was cool. But they were too tired to sit long be- 
fore it. Conversation flagged; one by one they 
nodded, and before nine o’clock Carl announced 
with a yawn that he had to go to bed. 

''No fear of cats to-night, I suppose,” sug- 
gested Bob. 

"Not a bit,” replied Carl, sleepily. "They 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


58 

can’t get through the door or windows even if 
they should want to come back, and I closed the 
way into their den under the house. 

Lighting candles, they retired to their rooms, 
and Carl, at any rate, was hardly on the sapin bed 
when he was asleep. It seemed to him that he 
had slept only a few minutes, though it was really 
two hours, when he was sharply awakened by a 
hand on his shoulder. He sat up, startled and 
dazed, and saw Alice standing beside him with a 
lighted candle. She looked wide-eyed and fright- 
ened. 

‘'Get up, Carl,” she whispered. “There ’s 
something outside, among the beehives. I was 
so frightened.” 

“One of those beastly cats again, I suppose,” 
said Carl, shaking Bob awake. 

“No, nothing like a cat. I could n’t sleep well. 
I was nervous, and I thought I heard something 
stirring outside. I looked out the window, and I 
saw something dim and big and black — like a 
bear.” 

“A bear!” exclaimed Bob, clutching for his 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 59 
rifle, which he had brought into the bedroom with 
him. 

A few moments later they all sallied into the 
bee-yard. There was no moon, but the starlight 
was so brilliant that it was not very dark. The 
rows of silent beehives looked weird and strange, 
but nothing stirred among them. They searched 
the whole clearing in vain. There was no trace 
of any living thing, and at last they went back to 
the cabin. It was nearly midnight, and cold, and 
they built up the fire and warmed themselves. 

The boys were sure that Alice had been dream- 
ing, but she was positive that she had both seen 
and heard some animal, and, in fact, was so nerv- 
ous that they had difficulty in persuading her to 
go back to bed again. For some time, indeed, 
they were all wakeful and alert, but they slept at 
last. Shortly after daylight they were up again, 
and the first thing they did was to make another 
search of the ground among the hives. Sure 
enough, in a sandy corner of the yard Carl came 
upon a track. It was not very distinct, but it 
looked as if a bear might have made it. 


6o 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


was sure of it !’’ cried Alice, triumphantly. 

'‘I believe it is a bear track, said Bob. '‘If 
we ’d only got a sight of him last night ! But we 
must look out. A bear in this bee ranch might 
ruin us in one night. All this honey would seem 
to him like a gold mine.’’ 

"Or a forest of bee-trees,” added Carl. "Yes, 
I think we ought to keep a fire burning in the 
yard every night, even if we have to get up two 
or three times to make it up. But is n’t it won- 
derful that this apiary has n’t been destroyed long 
ago, if there are bears about?” 

The morning air was sharp. No bees were 
flying till after nine o’clock. It was Friday, and 
Bob had to go back to Toronto on Monday, so 
that it was necessary to unpack the bees and go 
through them all if they were to have his help at 
this long and heavy task. 

They decided to unpack them first, as it would 
be easier to examine them after they were out of 
the cumbersome winter cases, and after break- 
fast the boys began to bring out the wooden, sum- 
mer hive covers that were stored in the barn with 
the rest of the supplies. Meanwhile Alice lighted 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


6i 


two smokers and got the hats and veils ready. 
There were canvas gloves that they had brought 
from home, too, in case the bees should prove es- 
pecially cross, and with all this apparatus they 
went out, ready for the first work on the new 
apiary. 

The winter cases usually held two colonies, and 
were resting on stands of two by four scantling. 
Alice puffed on the smoker bellows till a strong 
white cloud poured from the nozzle, and then 
blew a strong blast into the entrance hole of each 
of the two hives in the first case. Panic-stricken, 
the bees rushed inside, and the boys at once 
dragged the heavy case a few feet out of the way. 
Lifting the cover, they threw off the cushions, 
and then lifted the hives out of the cases, setting 
them down so that the flying bees would find their 
entrances exactly where they had stood before. 
For a bee’s homing instinct depends mainly on 
location. A worker will come back three miles 
straight to her hive, but if that hive is pushed 
three feet aside, she may spend hours in trying 
to find it. 

It was hard work. The cases were made of 


62 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


heavy lumber, and the boys had to carry them 
away and stack them up neatly. Even when the 
hives were out, the cases, with their sawdust 
packing, were as much as they cared to handle. 

And this juggling with their homes naturally 
irritated the bees greatly. The summer hives, 
different in shape and color from the cases that 
they had been used to, did not look homelike to 
them. They failed to recognize them. They 
hung about uncertainly in the air; they tried to 
enter cases that had not yet been unpacked; and 
this caused fighting with the guards. Some of 
them followed the big red cases and tried to enter 
them again. They grew vicious and stung, so 
that the apiarists had to put on their gloves. But 
by degrees a few began to recognize the odor of 
their old homes, and set up the peculiar whirr 
that acts as a call to the whole colony. They 
flocked down on the entrances in clouds, and 
stood with heads down and wings vibrating fast 
in the air — fanning, as bee-keepers call it — 
which is their invariable way of expressing great 
joy. 

Alice left the canvas quilts over the hives, but 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 63 

put on the summer board covers, and then they 
all went on to the next. 

‘‘These hives seem to me awfully light, said 
Bob, as he lifted out the box with its bees. 
“They surely can't have much honey." 

“I hope we don't have to feed them," Alice 
said, apprehensively. “Never mind; we'll find 
out to-morrow. Let 's get them all unpacked to- 
day." 

Packing and unpacking the hives in fall and 
spring is the most monotonous and heavy task of 
the whole season, mere hard, fatiguing work, un- 
relieved as it is by any interest of skill and sci- 
ence. The young Harmans did not finish the job 
till nearly dusk, and the boys’ backs and arms 
ached when they carried the last case away. But 
the yard looked more like an apiary now, and its 
owners contemplated it with pride. 

The summer hives were sixteen by twenty 
inches in size, and a little less than a foot deep. 
They were not painted white, as is usual with bee- 
hives, but were all sorts of colors, red, green, 
brown, yellow, giving the apiary a highly cheer- 
ful and picturesque effect. Either the former 


64 WILDERNESS HONEY 

owner had had a lively taste for color, or else he 
had used whatever paint he happened to have 
on hand. 

That night they kept a fire between the rows 
of hives, and Bob got up once to replenish it. He 
heard nothing stir, and in the morning there were 
no fresh tracks. He predicted that a bear would 
never again venture so near a dwelling, even with 
the temptation of unlimited honey. 

Both the boys had stiff muscles that morning, 
but they had planned to inspect the bees thor- 
oughly that day, and determined to go through 
with it. It promised to be a fine day, and the 
bees were getting enough honey to make them 
good-tempered; so they could be handled easily. 

'T ’m going to show you whether I can't handle 
these black bees as painlessly as Italians," said 
Alice when they went out, and she stopped before 
the first hive in the row. She was wearing the 
usual black-fronted veil, but no gloves, and she 
pulled her sleeves high up on her wrists. 

The colony was a strong one, with scores of 
bees coming and going. Alice gently blew a lit- 
tle smoke across the entrance, driving in the 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 65 

guards; then she blew a stronger puff. A fright- 
ened roar arose within. Panic spread through the 
hive instantly, for smoke is the only thing that 
bees fear. Alice waited half a minute and then 
removed the cover and pulled off the canvas quilt. 

A flood of bees surged up between the frames, 
but she drove them down with a puff of smoke 
before they could take wing. Another strong 
puff, and she set down the smoker, and with a 
screw-driver pried loose the outside frame, next 
to the hive wall. 

It came out hard, for the frames had probably 
been moved very little for over a year, and the 
bees had glued them fast. When she lifted it 
out it was covered with a close layer of black bees, 
who did not remain quiet on the combs like Ital- 
ians, but scurried here and there, gathered in clus- 
ters, and tumbled off on the ground in knots. 
They ran over Alice’s bare hands, but were too 
thoroughly subdued to sting. 

The comb was almost wholly filled with brood, 
sealed over with brown wax in the center, and 
the younger brood in a circle around this, look- 
ing like glistening white worms coiled at the bot- 


66 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


tom of each cell. In answer to a question from 
Bob, Carl explained that the egg laid by the queen 
hatches into a larva in three days. For seven 
days the rapidly-growing grub is fed incessantly 
by the bees, and then sealed over with wax to 
spin its cocoon and undergo its metamorphosis, 
hatching in eleven days more into a fully-devel- 
oped bee. 

Alic^ set down the frame, after looking to see 
that the queen was not upon it, and took out an- 
other. This was similarly full of brood, with a 
narrbw rim of honey along the top. All the rest 
of the ten frames showed much the same condi- 
tion, except the one next to the other wall of the 
hive, half of which was filled with fresh pollen, 
and half with newly gathered honey. 

“This colony must be fed,’^ said Alice, replac- 
ing the last frame and closing the hive. “It ’s got 
a splendid force of bees and heaps of brood, but 
a week of rainy weather would starve it to death. 
But what do you think of the way I can handle 
cross bees ? I did n’t get a sting.” 

“Highly scientific, but too slow,” said Carl. 
“At your rate we ’d be two or three days going 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


67 

through the yard. I think I ’ll put on gloves for 
to-day, so that we can get through them faster.” 

In fact, Alice had been obliged to move with 
the utmost deliberation, stopping frequently to 
use the smoker afresh, and it was slow work. So 
Carl put on the sting-proof bee-gloves, with 
sleeves halfway to the elbow and half the fingers 
cut off, took the other smoker, and began work on 
the next row. Bob, who was not skilled at bee 
manipulation, acted as assistant to both of them, 
fetching and carrying the things that the two ex- 
perts needed. 

Carl had no need of gloves for the first colony 
he opened. Instead of a crowded mass of bees, 
only a little cluster showed between the two cen- 
ter combs. Lifting one of them out, he spied the 
queen at once, walking over a small patch of 
brood about three inches in diameter. There 
were bees enough to cover only one comb well, and 
they were all huddled in this central space, try- 
ing desperately to build up their colony. These 
were yellow bees, at least half-bred Italians. 

'Will they live?” asked Bob, peering into the 
pathetic little colony. 


68 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


‘'Oh, yes, they ’ll come on, but probably far too 
late to do anything at gathering honey this sea- 
son,” Carl answered. “By the time they ’ve built 
up strong the honey-flow will be over.” 

A moment later Alice uttered an exclamation 
from the hive she had just opened. 

“Here ’s something wrong !” 

Carl and Bob went to look. The colony was 
of about one-fourth its normal strength, and the 
bees, instead of being clustered on the combs, 
were running and scattering in every direction. 
Despite the smoke they boiled out of the hive, 
making a peculiar distressful hum, not easily de- 
scribed. 

“Queenless, for certain!” Carl exclaimed, rec- 
ognizing these indications. 

And, indeed, when the combs were taken out 
one by one there was no sign of either eggs or 
brood. The queen must have perished in the 
winter. These bees were all old ones from the 
last season, and they had no possibility of rear- 
ing any young. In a little while longer they 
would all have died, and they were well aware 
of their desperate state. They were intensely 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 69 
nervous and fierce-tempered, yet their indomitable 
instinct for work had led them to keep gathering 
honey. As they had no brood to feed it to, and 
adult bees eat little, they had accumulated almost 
two combs full of fresh honey from the willows 
and maples. 

‘‘Unite them with that weak colony I found 
just now,’’ Carl proposed. 

“Just what I was going to do,” Alice returned. 

Carl uncovered the weak colony again, while 
Bob pried off the bottom from the queenless one. 
Alice blew a little smoke on both colonies, then 
Bob carefully lifted the queenless hive and set it 
on top of the other, making a hive in two stories, 
with two sets of combs. 

At first there was a little disturbance as the 
bees from the two colonies mixed. Several bees 
rolled out at the entrance, fighting furiously. 
Then all was quiet ; a contented hum arose within. 
Lifting a corner of the quilt cautiously, Carl saw 
the queenless bees standing head downward on 
their combs, fanning with joy at finding them- 
selves attached to a normal family. 

“Now those two together should build up and 


70 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


do something, and neither of them would have 
been any good alone,” said Alice, with satisfac- 
tion. 

After these two bad colonies, they came to a 
long series of good ones, crammed with bees and 
brood, though nearly all light in honey. Then 
they found a dead one, with the bees still in clus- 
ters on the moldy combs. These contained not 
a drop of honey ; probably the insects had starved. 
Taking out a comb, Alice pointed out how the 
bees had crawled deep into the cells, in order to 
make an unbroken block of heat during the win- 
ter, thus making the empty combs almost a solid 
mass of insects. In very cold weather a strong 
colony, filling a hive, will crowd itself into a clus- 
ter no bigger than a cocoanut. 

They worked all that morning, stopped for an 
hour at noon, and went at it again. By evening 
they had finished the inspection, and were de- 
cidedly disappointed. 

Of the one hundred and eighty colonies, ten 
were dead. Fifteen others were without queens 
and had to be united at once with normal colonies. 
From more than twenty hives they had found one 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


71 

or more frames of comb missing. It was im- 
possible to say whether these had been omitted 
by the former owner, or whether they had been 
abstracted since. About twenty more colonies 
were very weak in bees, and would hardly breed 
up to full strength in time to gather much honey 
from raspberries. But more than a hundred col- 
onies were strong; some of them indeed were al- 
most overflowing the hive already, and would 
have to be given more room soon if swarming 
was to be prevented. 

But the worst feature was the shortage of 
honey. Without an abundance of food in the 
hive, bees will not rear brood in profusion in the 
spring, which results in a weakened condition for 
the harvest. A strong colony needs about twenty 
pounds of honey to carry it through this critical 
time, and few had as much as that. Some had 
only a small patch of fresh willow honey; plainly 
they were living only from day to day, and much 
of the brood would perish if a spell of cold or 
rainy weather should come. To put the bees into 
strong condition they would have to be fed. It 
would take nearly a thousand pounds of honey to 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


72 

go around, and this new expense would be a hard 
strain to bear. 

It was hard also to face the fact that their 
profits would have to come from less than one 
hundred and fifty colonies instead of one hundred 
and eighty, though they might have known that 
some were certain to be dead or queenless. 

‘'It was n’t really a heavy winter loss,” said 
Alice, “yet with one thing and another, it does 
look like a poor chance of clearing eighteen hun- 
dred dollars.” 

“Lucky if we make a thousand,” answered 
Carl. “If the season should be a poor one, per- 
haps nothing at all.” 

They were all rather tired and despondent. 
They had rushed into the enterprise full of en- 
thusiasm, and only now did they begin to realize 
the obstacles ahead of them. 

The next day was Sunday. The weather was 
still fair, and the bees were still busy in the wil- 
lows and maples. For some reason, in the peace- 
ful May sunshine, the future looked a little 
brighter to the Harmans. If the good honey- 
flow from the willows continued, they might not 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 73 

have to feed after all, or, at any rate, not half so 
much as they had feared. 

There was no necessary work to be done that 
day, and they were glad of the rest. They 
watched the bees work in the forenoon ; they read 
and lounged lazily in the sun; and in the after- 
noon they went for a stroll up the river bank. 

The stream was lined everywhere with willows 
and alders, all in flower and roaring with bees. 
Trout leaped from the water; once they scared 
up a pair of wild ducks, that went off with a great 
splashing and flutter. Several times they saw 
muskrats navigating along close to the shore, the 
apex of a long V ripple on the water, and once 
in a rick of drift logs they caught a glimpse of 
the slender, graceful form of a mink just diving 
into a hole. 

'T fll bet there ’s lots of fur up here,” said Bob. 
'T tell you, I believe that if I fail in my exams, or 
if anything goes wrong, I 'll come up here and 
stay all winter trapping. I could have got six 
dollars for the pelt of that mink. It might pay 
better than keeping bees.” 

''Why, I 'd like that above all things !” Alice 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


74 

exclaimed. ^‘We ’d hunt and snowshoe, and we 
could skate right down the river to Morton.'’ 

‘We could lay in provisions, salt down two or 
three deer, and hundreds of wild ducks and par- 
tridges,” added Carl, with interest. 

“Yes, and trout, too. Or perhaps we could 
catch them through the ice. We could pick and 
dry raspberries this summer, and I ’d make jam — 
only how would I buy the sugar? Anyhow, 
we 'd have all the honey we could eat, and in the 
spring we could make maple syrup. I think it 
would simply be immense. But I 'm afraid we 'll 
have so much money that we won't have to do it !'' 
she added, with a sigh. 

“I would n't be so sure of it,'' said Bob. “But 
by the time I get back I suppose we can tell how 
the game is going to go.'' 

Bob had to go back to his classes in the morn- 
ing, and they spent that evening earnestly discuss- 
ing the plan of campaign. The bees would have 
to be left entirely in the care of Carl and Alice 
till Bob could return, but the heaviest part of the 
season would probably not come till after that 
time. They made out a list of some necessary 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 75 

apiary supplies, which Bob was to order in Tor- 
onto, and found it hard to order what they needed, 
without spending more than they could afford. 
At the same time they prepared an order for half 
a dozen Italian queens to be mailed by a well- 
known breeder in the southern states. 

‘‘And I 'll buy one good, three-dollar breeding 
queen," said Alice. “I won't be satisfied till I see 
this whole yard Italianized. The Italian bees are 
gentler and better workers, and if we ever wanted 
to sell the outfit again, we would get twice as 
much for it if it was all thoroughbred stock." 

Early the next morning Bob set out to walk to 
Morton for the train, and Carl accompanied him 
to order lumber for making new hives at the local 
planing-mill. It was late in the afternoon when 
he returned with the same driver and wagon that 
had been there several times before, and Jack ac- 
companied them, appearing to have pleasant rec- 
ollections of the place. Carl brought, besides the 
lumber, three hundred-pound sacks of sugar, 
some groceries and provisions, and something 
else that he threw down at Alice's feet with a loud 
clanking of metal. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


76 

''What do you think of that?'' he exclaimed. 
"If any midnight marauder gets into that, I think 
he 'll stay with us." 

It was an enormous bear trap, that Carl had 
picked up cheap at second-hand. Rusty and sav- 
age-looking, it was a formidable affair, with 
sharp-toothed jaws and double springs that had 
to be set with the aid of a lever. 

"Good gracious ! what a cruel, horrible thing !" 
exclaimed Alice, shrinking back. "Surely you 
don't mean to set it ? Suppose one of the cats got 
into it?" 

"It would cut him clean in two," said Carl, 
hopefully. "But I 'm afraid a cat's weight 
would n’t spring it. Certainly I 'm going to 
set it." 

He did set it that night near the beehives; cov- 
ering it carefully with leaves, and fastening the 
six-foot chain to a small tree. Twice during the 
night he thought he heard the chain rattle, and got 
up hastily to look, but each time he found the big 
trap undisturbed. 

For the next day or two Alice was busy with 
her work about the cabin. She was making a 



Two of the hives that were farthest from the house had been 

pillaged 




TROUBLE IN THE DARK 


79 

garden, planting lettuce, radishes, pumpkins, 
beans, and potatoes with the seeds that she had 
brought with her. Around the door she planted 
flowers and carefully nursed the few stalks that 
still survived there. Carl meanwhile was sorting 
out the heap of bee-supplies in the barn, and they 
were both so busy that they had no time to be 
lonely after Bob’s departure. The bees were still 
busy, too. The honey-flow from the willows was 
lasting well, and every day of it meant several 
dollars’ worth less of sugar to buy for feeding. 
First of all, every morning Carl went out to look 
at his trap. For three days it remained unmo- 
lested. There was no trace of any animal having 
crossed the bee-yard, but the fourth morning told 
a different tale. 

Alice was getting breakfast, but she hurried 
out at her brother’s cry of alarm. The trap was 
not sprung, but two of the hives, which were 
farthest from the house, had been pillaged. One 
of them lay tumbled upon its side, the combs fall- 
ing loose. The cover had been pulled off the 
other, and empty frames from which the honey- 
combs had been broken out littered the ground. 


8o WILDERNESS HONEY 

Masses of bewildered bees crawled over the 

wreck, too cowed to be savage. 

Alice gave an exclamation of horror at the 
sight. 

‘What can have done it?’' she cried. 

“Don’t know,” said Carl. “But come, let ’s 
put these hives together again. If the queens 
are n’t killed, they may amount to something yet.” 

They set up the hives again, and carefully re- 
placed the frames. For the broken combs they 
substituted fresh ones from colonies that had 
died, and while doing this Alice was lucky enough 
to catch sight of one of the queens sitting on a 
small stick with a faithful bunch of her bees 
around her. There was no telling, of course, to 
which hive she belonged, so they put her in the 
one that was nearest. The other queen was not 
to be found, but she might easily have been some- 
where among the masses of bees that clung about 
the wrecked combs. 

“Do you think a bear did it?” Alice asked, 
when they had finished. 

“It seems more like a bear’s work than any- 


TROUBLE IN THE DARK 8i 

thing else/’ answered Carl. 'Tet ’s see if we can 
find any trail.” 

Most of the ground in the bee-yard was too 
hard and stony to show tracks. Carl began to 
circle the edge of the clearing to see if he could 
make out where the animal had entered the 
apiary. 

^‘Look here, Carl,” Alice suddenly called to him 
from a distance. ‘What in the world do you 
make of this ?” 

Carl hastened up, and found her bending over 
a monstrous footprint, the like of which neither 
of them had ever seen before. 


CHAPTER III 


STRANGE PERILS 

T he strange oval footprint was at least ten 
inches long. The creature that had made 
it was surely heavy, for it had sunk deep into the 
ground; and there were four claw-marks. 

‘'Surely that ’s not a bear-track,’’ said Alice. 
“More like the track of a young elephant, I 
should think,” Carl returned. “That is, if ele- 
phants had claws and ever robbed beehives.” 

It was not easy to follow the trail over the hard 
ground. Here and there in soft spots they found 
the huge foot-marks. Apparently the beast had 
rambled all over the apiary, coming close to the 
trap several times, but always avoiding it. They 
followed it across the road, and there it gave out 
completely. 

Completely bewildered, Alice and Carl returned 
to the cabin for their delayed breakfast. The 
raid on the apiary was a mystery. They knew of 
82 


STRANGE PERILS 83 

no animal in the Canadian woods that could have 
made such a track, though all through breakfast 
and afterward they discussed and guessed and 
tried to imagine some explanation. At last Carl, 
half in joke, began to recount Indian legends of 
the wendigo, — a giant, cannibal demon supposed 
to prey on hunters in the North, — until Alice im- 
plored him to stop. 

‘T shall be afraid to go to bed to-night,’' she 
said. ^'Suppose I awoke and saw that great ter- 
rible thing looking in through the window at me !” 

‘Terhaps we '11 catch it in the trap,” Carl tried 
to reassure her. ''Don’t be frightened, Allie. 
The wendigo does n’t leave any tracks where it 
walks, and besides I don’t believe it would eat 
honey. It loves stronger stuff, like blood and 
bones.” 

"Oh, stop!” cried Alice, putting her hands to 
her ears. 

Thinking it over, Carl came to the conclusion 
that the tracks must have been made by a very 
large bear, whose feet were deformed in some 
way, perhaps by an injury. Perhaps only one 
foot was misshapen, for he had never clearly 


84 WILDERNESS HONEY 

made out more than one track at a time. Any- 
how this was the only explanation that he could 
give for the strange trail. 

When darkness fell they gathered a great store 
of wood and sat late in the bright firelight. They 
hesitated about separating to their rooms, and 
Alice, at last, flatly refused to go. Carl did not 
insist, and they brought out blankets and spread 
them on the floor by the fire, laying both guns 
loaded and handy. 

Neither of them slept well. Several times 
Carl jumped up, fancying that he had heard some 
sound outside ; but all was quiet when he opened 
the door. But toward daylight they both fell 
soundly asleep and did not awake until the sun 
was high over the cedars. 

The trap had not been sprung; the bees had not 
been disturbed, and there were no fresh tracks 
in the yard. Carl and Alice both felt decidedly 
languid after their bad night, but the hot break- 
fast coffee was stimulating, and in the bright sun- 
light they began to feel much more courageous. 

Shortly after breakfast Alice caught sight of 
one of Carl's cats, eating a quantity of trout- 


STRANGE PERILS 85 

heads that had been thrown out behind the cabin. 
It was really a wild-looking creature, enormously 
large, yellowish-gray, and very thick-furred. 

'Tussy, pussy! Come here, poor kitty!'' she 
called, coaxingly. 

Carl laughed. The cat bristled its tail, 
growled, and slunk back inch by inch till it was 
close to the thickets, and then vanished with a 
leap. 

''You could tame a lynx just as quickly,'' said 
Carl. "These cats are wild clear through now." 

"But I believe we could coax them into the 
house when snow comes, if we were to stay here 
all winter," returned Alice. "One of those crea- 
tures would be as good as a watch-dog." 

Carl presently set to work again at the bee- 
fixtures stored in the barn, while Alice resumed 
her gardening. He found more supplies and a 
greater quantity of them than he had anticipated. 
There were no less than two hundred supers for 
comb-honey, all fitted with section-holders and 
separators, but with no sections. There were one 
hundred and five deep supers, the same size as the 
hives, for producing extracted honey, all full of 


86 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


empty combs for extracting, though many of 
these had been badly damaged by mice and the 
bee-moth. In one corner was a great pile of per- 
forated zinc queen-excluders, designed to prevent 
the queen from reaching the extracting combs and 
laying eggs in them. Carl rejoiced at this partic- 
ularly, for these excluders are expensive, and he 
had been wondering if they would have to buy 
them. There was also one good smoker and one 
broken one. There was a four-frame extractor, 
rusty, but apparently in working condition. 
There were honey tanks, which only needed 
cleaning, and there were several hundred brood 
frames in the flat, which had never been put to- 
gether. There were also two dozen ten-pound 
honey-pails, most of which had never been used, 
and were now too rusted to put honey in ; but they 
would be extremely useful for many household 
purposes. Alice had been lamenting her scanty 
stock of tinware, and Carl was gathering these 
together to carry them up to the house, when he 
came upon two that were unexpectedly heavy. 
Opening them, he found them both full of honey 
that the former owner had somehow overlooked. 


STRANGE PERILS 87 

It was candied as hard as butter, but was white 
and delicious in flavor, not in the least injured by 
the winter cold. Carl carried it up to Alice in 
triumph. It was a great find. 

‘Tf the honey we get this summer is as white 
and good as this, there 'll be no trouble about get- 
ting a good price," he remarked, digging into the 
pail with a spoon. 

Alice finally took it forcibly from him, and 
sent him back to the barn. He sorted out the 
different articles, and stored them in neat piles, 
making a written inventory of the lot. The 
things that were to be repaired he put aside. 
Should the season turn out well, they would need 
more supplies, and certainly they must have about 
a hundred new hives for the increase they in- 
tended to make, as well as for additional supers. 
But this outfit would give them a good start, and 
he felt that they had got a bargain after all. 

Down at the bottom of the pile he came upon a 
big fish-net, now rather old, moldy, and torn. 
Still, he thought it might be mended and made 
fit for use, and he hung it in the sun. It was 
not a sportsman's tool, of course. He had no 


88 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


idea of using it that summer, but if they should 
want to catch a large quantity of fish for winter 
salting, it would be just the thing. 

Alice, meanwhile, was planting more lettuce, 
corn, and potatoes on the sunny side of the house. 
All day they both worked hard, and their fear of 
the wendigo gradually disappeared. They slept 
in their own bunks that night, and in the morn- 
ing they found that the apiary had not been 
molested. 

The willow bloom was almost over now, but 
the bees were still getting a little honey from the 
maples. That day Carl and Alice looked over 
some of the colonies again, and were delighted 
to find that both the hives that had been raided 
were getting back into condition again. The 
queens had survived, and with the strong force 
of bees that they possessed, these two colonies 
would quickly recover from their disaster. 

A few other colonies were found almost des- 
titute of stores, naturally the best ones, as they 
had an enormous amount of brood to feed with 
only a limited supply of honey. Others had 
honey to spare, and they equalized matters a little, 


STRANGE PERILS 89 

taking frames of honey from the rich ones and 
giving them to the needy. 

That night passed without disturbance, and in 
the morning a warm, gentle rain was falling. 
The roof of the cabin developed a leak, and Carl 
had to clamber up to make repairs. As the rain 
lasted all day, more leaks appeared hourly, and 
he was kept busy with his patching. Between 
times he went fishing in the river just behind the 
house. The trout bit ravenously, and he landed 
one fish that must have weighed nearly three 
pounds. 

The next morning it cleared off warm and 
damp, and the moist heat caused a heavy honey- 
flow from the maples. The whole wilderness 
sprang suddenly into intense green. The rasp- 
berry bushes were already beginning to show 
tiny buds, but it would be weeks yet before these 
would open, and meanwhile the bees would prob- 
ably need feeding. 

Two days later the supplies that Bob had or- 
dered arrived. They consisted chiefly of brood- 
frames in the flat, several thousand one-pound 
sections, and a large quantity of comb foundation. 


90 WILDERNESS HONEY 

This comb foundation is one of the most neces- 
sary things in a modern apiary. It consists of 
thin sheets of pure beeswax, about the thickness 
of blotting-paper and stamped with the impres- 
sion of honey cells. When fixed in a frame or in 
a section and placed in a hive, the intelligent in- 
sects at once recognize its use and lengthen out 
the stamped indentations into accurate cells. A 
comb is thus produced very quickly, and with a 
great economy of honey and wax. 

The wooden section-boxes were in the flat, and 
had to be folded up into squares, pressed firmly 
together, and a sheet of the thinnest foundation 
fastened in each with melted wax. This was deli- 
cate and tedious work, and kept the two apiarists 
busy for the next week. 

All the lumber had to be made up into new 
hives, too, and the frames nailed together, filled 
with foundation, and placed in them. Carl had 
set up a work-bench in the barn, and he was busy 
there from morning to night with his carpenter- 
ing, while Alice worked with the sections, pre- 
paring super after super to be placed on the hives 
whenever the main honey-flow should begin. 


STRANGE PERILS 91 

They had too much to do to think much of either 
bears or wendigos, but three or four nights later 
Carl was awakened by a noise in the clearing. 
He had a confused impression that somebody had 
called to him. The next instant he heard a rattle 
of metal, and a sound of something thrashing 
about. He leaped up and pulled on his trou- 
sers. 

"‘Alice!” he called. “Get up. Light the lan- 
tern, quick ! Something 's in the trap !” 

There was a crescent moon, but it gave only a 
feeble light, and as he rushed out with his shot- 
gun cocked, he could see little. But as he ap- 
proached the trap, he discerned a great, shapeless 
figure crouched over it, apparently struggling to 
get free from the jaws. Thrilling with excite- 
ment, Carl stopped, then crept a little nearer and 
raised his gun. He would have fired in another 
moment, but just then he caught the sound of a 
human voice. It was not a wild beast in the trap. 
It was a man ! 

The fellow was muttering in some unknown 
language, and no pleasant words, by the sound of 
them. Carl ran up, trembling at the narrow es- 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


92 

cape, and the figure straightened up to human 
proportions. 

‘‘Stand still!’’ Carl cried. “It’s all right. 
I ’ll get you out.” 

He was so shocked at having so narrowly 
missed shooting a man that it did not occur to 
him that perhaps he had caught the honey-thief. 

“Take off zis trap,” cried the man, with an 
oath. “He break my leg.” 

Alice was lighting the lantern in the cabin. In 
the darkness Carl could just make out that the 
fellow was caught by one foot. To open the stiff 
springs of the trap he would need a lever. 

“Wait a minute!” he called, groping about for 
a stout pole. 

He found one, bent over the trap, and then ut- 
tered a startled exclamation. The man’s im- 
prisoned foot looked strangely huge and de- 
formed. He struck a match; the man struck 
it from his hand, but in the momentary flash 
Carl saw that the fellow was wearing enormous, 
padded moccasins. 

“Oho!” he cried. “So you’re the wendigo!” 



It was not a wild beast in the trap : it was a man ! 





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STRANGE PERILS 95 

understanV' growled the prisoner. 
‘‘Open zis trap and let me go.’’ 

Carl hesitated a moment. Then he pried down 
one of the springs, slipped the ring down to hold 
it, and released the other spring. The jaws fell 
apart. The man withdrew his foot, almost 
toppled over, and then painfully hobbled a few 
steps. 

“I git even ! I keel you for zis !” he exclaimed, 
standing on one leg. 

At that moment Alice came hurrying out with 
the lighted lantern, and the man wheeled and 
started away at a limping run. Evidently he 
wished to avoid the light. 

“Hold on !” shouted Carl, picking up his gun. 
“Stop ! I want to know who you are. Stop ! — 
or I ’ll shoot.” 

The thief flung back some savage answer, but 
kept moving. Carl discharged one barrel of his 
gun in the air, but it had no effect, for the next 
moment the man had vanished into the dark 
woods. Carl did not care. He had only wished 
to frighten the fellow, and he would not have 


96 WILDERNESS HONEY 

known what to do with him as a prisoner. The 
thief surely had had his lesson, and he looked 
after him with a smile. 

'That was your wendigo, Alice,” he said to his 
sister, who was pale and badly frightened. "Did 
you notice his feet? He was wearing great 
stuffed moccasins to imitate a wild beast’s track. 
I suppose they had nails in the toes for claw- 
marks. Look here and see the wendigo trail he 
made.” 

Sure enough, here and there on the soft bits of 
earth they found the same great misshapen trail 
as before, claw-marks and all. Carl chuckled. 

"I Ve heard of the trick before,” he said. "I 
don’t know why it never occurred to me that it 
might be a human bear. But I don’t think he ’ll 
try it again.” 

"He may do worse, though,” said Alice nerv- 
ously. "He might set fire to the cabin or the bees 
— or shoot us.” 

But Carl did not think there was any danger 
of the man attempting any revenge for that night 
at any rate. He was likely to be too lame and 
sore, and he had not seemed to carry any weapon ; 


STRANGE PERILS 


97 

so, after watching for a short time, they went 
back to bed. 

But neither of them slept much in the few hours 
that remained before daybreak. They were up 
early and tried to follow the trail of the mock 
wendigo, but they lost it on the stony road. No 
hives had been damaged this time ; the robber had 
doubtless been trapped before he had time to rob. 
And the trap must have bitten hard, for there 
was blood on the rusty, toothed jaws. 

Carl had noticed that the man spoke with a 
strong foreign accent. The only foreigners in 
that district were the French half-breeds living 
near Morton. He had no doubt that the honey- 
thief had come from that settlement, for these 
people had no high reputation for strict honesty. 

He could hardly think that the fellow would 
try to steal any more honey from the hives, and 
he did not believe that he would walk all the long 
way from Morton merely to seek revenge. He 
tried to impress Alice with this comforting view ; 
nevertheless he slept lightly for several nights, 
and kept a loaded rifle close to his bunk. 

He was right. The raider did not venture 


98 WILDERNESS HONEY 

back, and presently the pressure of work drove 
most other considerations out of their minds. 
The willow and maple bloom were both over. 
The bees were getting no honey now, and no 
colony had honey that could be spared. Feeding 
had to be resorted to. 

They had no regular feeders; this was one thing 
that the miscellaneous pile in the barn failed to 
contain. Alice extemporized several, however, 
by uncovering a hive, setting a tin pan full of 
sugar syrup directly on top of the frames, and 
putting the cover over all. In one night the 
bees would store fifteen or twenty pounds of syrup 
in their combs, and one such feed was enough to 
last them till the honey-flow. 

Carl incautiously fed his first colony in the 
daytime and nearly precipitated a riot in the yard. 
The colony that had been given the syrup rushed 
out in wild excitement, flying into the air and 
returning. They knew that sweet was coming in 
from somewhere, but they did not yet comprehend 
the source. The bees from adjoining colonies, 
seeing this excitement, began to rush out like- 
wise; some of them made their way into the feed- 


STRANGE PERILS 99 

ing hive, finding the entrance unguarded in the 
commotion, and there was sharp fighting. For- 
tunately this was a strong colony, well able to 
defend itself, and the robber bees were routed; 
but after that Carl was careful to do his feeding 
after sunset or on a rainy day. 

During the day there were still supplies to be 
got ready for the coming harvest. Another 
wagon-load of lumber came over from Morton, 
and soon Carl had an immense stack of new hive- 
bodies ready for the expected increase. A cor- 
responding number of bottom-boards and covers 
had to be made as well, so that there was little 
time now for hunting, fishing, or loafing. 

To be sure, almost every day either he or Alice 
caught a few trout, but this was for food and not 
for sport, and was done as expeditiously as possi- 
ble. Often, too, they shot a rabbit or a partridge 
when it did not involve walking too far. Game 
was out of season, indeed, but real settlers are 
exempt from the provisions of the game laws, 
and Alice became very expert at this sort of for- 
aging. 

To his amazement, on coming in to dinner one 


lOO 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


day, Carl was confronted with an omelette. 

‘‘Why, Alice! where did you get the eggs?’’ 
he exclaimed. 

“I ’m ashamed to tell you,” the girl replied. 
“You see, we had no fresh meat, and I was sick 
of pork and fish too, and I took the shotgun and 
walked out down by the river to see if I might 
see a duck. A partridge flew up almost from 
under my feet, and perched on a branch. I shot 
it without thinking ; but the next minute it struck 
me that she must have a nest. I looked, and there 
it was, with fourteen eggs in it. I almost cried ! 
However, I gathered them up and brought them 
home, and they were all perfectly good but two.” 

It was highly wrong, of course, but the omelette 
was delicious, and Carl did not reprimand her. 

It was now the middle of June, and summer 
seemed to have come on with a rush. All the 
trees were in full leaf ; the buds on the raspberry 
canes were swelling, and the bloom might be ex- 
pected in a week. The days had grown almost 
hot, and mosquitoes began to appear. Bob wrote 
that his examinations had commenced, and that 
he would be able to come up within ten days. 


STRANGE PERILS loi 

Alice and Carl had pretty well finished their 
preparations for the honey-flow, and now had a 
good deal of time on their hands. They fished 
often, following the river up and down, wishing 
for a canoe. And they explored the woods in 
every direction to find the extent of the bee pas- 
turage. 

‘'Why, there must be miles of berries,’^ Carl 
said. “There ’s no end to them, not to speak of 
lots of basswood. I don’t see how we can fail to 
get a hundred pounds of honey per colony.” 

Alice’s garden was flourishing too. All the 
vegetables were up, and she tended them herself. 
This occupation, with the care of the cabin, took 
up a good deal of her time, and Carl often went 
on fishing and exploring expeditions alone. It 
was on one of these solitary rambles that he met 
with an adventure that he never could forget and 
never remembered without a shock of horror. 

It was a hot, late June day, and he had walked 
up the river with his fly-rod, fishing at intervals, 
but for the most part merely loitering. It was 
too sunny and hot for the trout to rise well, but 
there was much of interest to be seen in the 


102 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


stealthy, wild life that swarmed around him. He 
knew well where a pair of wild ducks had their 
nest in a marshy spot, and he watched them from 
a distance. Muskrats could be seen anywhere, 
and he knew now where to look for the shy mink. 
At a sandy spot on the shore he found the trail of 
a deer that had come to drink the night before, 
and a little farther up he came to the foot of a 
long rapid. 

The banks of the river narrowed greatly here, 
and the current swept down like a mill-race 
through the cramped channel studded with sharp, 
black rocks. The chute was over a hundred feet 
long, and was a place which only a daring canoe- 
man would have dared to run. A portage would 
have been difficult, however, for the shore on both 
sides and for a long way back was choked with 
dense cedar thickets, a maze of fallen and stand- 
ing trunks that was nearly impenetrable. 

Carl stopped and cast his flies across the tail of 
the rapid, where he knew big fish were accus- 
tomed to lie. The day was unfavorable, how- 
ever ; after half an hour’s fishing he caught only 
two rather small trout, and he began to debate 


STRANGE PERILS 103 

whether to return or to go through the jungle. 
It was hardly worth while to go farther, but at 
the head of the rapid there was an immense 
burned slash choked with wild raspberry, and he 
was anxious to see how the buds were coming on. 

So he took his rod apart and plunged into the 
thickets. It was a slow, struggling business and 
took him more than half an hour to reach the 
other side, where the rapid began its tumultuous 
course. 

The raspberry slash was fully a quarter of a 
mile wide and ran off to an indefinite distance 
from the river. The canes were growing four 
feet high and were covered with large buds ; here 
and there a flower was almost open. Carl pushed 
into the prickly thickets for some distance, and 
was looking at the prospect of bloom with great 
delight, when he caught a glimpse of a grayish, 
furry hide vanishing among the bushes a few 
rods away. 

He jumped upon a fallen log and gazed around. 
Nothing stirred, but he was sure that he had not 
been mistaken. There was a strip of open 
ground, ahead where the unknown animal must 


104 WILDERNESS HONEYi 
show itself if it was coming toward him, and 
in a few seconds indeed the creature came out 
from the raspberries into plain sight. It came 
at a fast, slinking trot, a gray-brown animal 
about the size of a collie dog, bushy-tailed, carry- 
ing its head low. 

Carl had never seen a timber-wolf at large, 
though he had watched them behind iron bars, 
and he recognized the animal in a moment. He 
was not particularly frightened, but was very 
much surprised, for he had not supposed that 
there were any wolves in that district. Still, he 
recollected, where deer are plentiful there are al- 
most sure to be wolves, and deer have been in- 
creasing very fast in the North of late years. 
The great Algonquin Park game-preserve affords 
them a safe breeding-place, and they have spread 
into all the territory for miles around. Wolves 
are extremely shy and timid when alone, and Carl 
stood still and watched it come, in amused expec- 
tation of the frantic bolt it would make when it 
caught sight of him. 

But it came on with disconcerting steadiness, 
though it glanced up, sniffed, and must have seen 


STRANGE PERILS 


105 

him. Carl began to feel a slight uneasiness. 
The beast's coat looked dull and mangy. There 
was a curious, jerky motion in its gait, and large 
flecks of froth on its half-open jaws. As it came 
nearer, Carl heard a continuous low sound, half 
snarl and half moan, from its low-hung muzzle. 

As if by intuition, Carl realized what was the 
matter. The animal was mad ! 

Dimly he remembered now having heard that 
rabies is terribly prevalent every summer among 
the timber-wolves, serving, in fact, a useful pur- 
pose in keeping down their numbers. The af- 
flicted wolf always leaves the pack and wanders 
forth alone, spreading its malady, of course, at 
every chance meeting, till it dies a merciful and 
solitary death. 

Carl had no weapon, not even a knife. It was 
too late to run, and this would only draw the 
animal's pursuit. But a dead cedar stood at his 
elbow, and with a bound he clutched the trunk, 
and pulled himself up among the dry, spiky 
branches. 

The movement caught the sick wolf's attention, 
and it sprang forward while Carl was still dang- 


io6 WILDERNESS HONEY 
ling. He kicked out desperately. His boot 
caught the wolf on the jaw as it leaped after him, 
and it fell back with a yelp, while Carl tremu- 
lously established himself out of reach. 

The unfortunate animal made three or four 
bounds into the air in an aimless fashion, and 
stared up blinking. Carl expected to be held cap- 
tive in the tree for a long time, but in a few min- 
utes the wolf seemed to forget him. It raised its 
muzzle and howled dismally, then loped off into 
the thickets, heading down the river. 

Carl kept his perch in the tree for some min- 
utes after the animal was out of sight. The 
peculiar horror of this peril, worse than any ordi- 
nary form of death, had completely unnerved 
him. Then, like a flash, it came upon him that 
the wolf was heading directly for their cabin. 

Alice was there alone, perhaps working in her 
garden or in the bee-yard or at the barn — cer- 
tainly somewhere out-of-doors. The wolf would 
come blindly out into the clearing ; and in its mad- 
ness, as he had seen, it had no fear of man. 

The imminence of this more appalling danger 
shocked Carl out of his panic. He slid down 


STRANGE PERILS 


107 

from his tree breathlessly and rushed toward the 
river. 

The cedar jungle barred his way. It would 
take him a long time to get through it, so long 
that he could hardly hope to reach the clearing 
first. The fast loping trot of the wolf is decep- 
tive, and Carl knew that the animal was moving 
almost as swiftly as a man could run. It could 
slip through the thickets with little trouble, but 
for himself the delay might be fatal. 

He turned to the river. If he had had a canoe 
he would have risked the rapid without hesitat- 
ing, for the water-way was the only one past this 
barrier. He thought of swimming down, but 
just then his eye fell upon a short, thick, pine 
log, half stranded and half afloat, close to him. 

Without stopping to think of the risk, Carl 
shoved it into the current, waded after it, and 
flung himself upon it. It would serve as a float, 
and the spray was spattering in his face before 
he realized the full danger. 

The pine log shot like a bullet down the boiling 
current, going too fast to revolve in the water, 
and missing the boulders by some miraculous 


io8 WILDERNESS HONEY 
good luck. Carl had intended to steer with his 
legs, but he was half-way down the chute before 
he had time to make a movement. 

In that rush he could only hold his breath and 
cling hard. His leg struck something; it must 
have been a rock, but he was only grazed. He 
plunged through a bank of piled foam with a 
flurry of white flakes, and he was almost at the 
tail of the rapid when the log turned and he went 
under. He let go involuntarily. The log darted 
away, and for a moment he was choked, battered, 
and blinded, and then he came up at the foot of 
the rapid, feeling half-stunned. Several inches 
of skin were gone from one hand where it had 
struck a rock, but he had suffered no serious in- 
jury, and he regained his feet in about three feet 
of water and waded ashore. 

There was a fairly clear path down the shore, 
and he began to run, stumbling and dizzy at first, 
then faster as he warmed to it. He was desper- 
ately afraid of overtaking or running upon the 
wolf, and he kept a sharp lookout as he ran. But 
he saw nothing of the animal, and began to hope 
that he had distanced it. 


STRANGE PERILS 


109 

It was a long way, but Carl was a good runner 
and in fine physical condition. Nevertheless he 
flagged at last, slowed to a walk, tried to run 
again, and paused, his heart almost bursting his 
sides. He was not a quarter of a mile from the 
clearing, he thought, and he was struggling on 
at a fast walk, when he heard a moaning howl in 
the woods, ahead and to the right. 

It sent fresh life through him like an electric 
shock. The sound had seemed to come from the 
exact direction of the cabin. With a burst of 
desperate energy he dashed ahead and burst 
through the willows. At the first glance he saw 
with a flood of thankfulness that he was not too 
late. 

Alice had a veil on and was doing something 
at one of the hives between the house and the 
barn. 

‘'Run, Alice !” Carl yelled, rushing toward her. 
“Run for the house 

Alice looked up in surprise and called some- 
thing back to him, without moving. 

“Run!” her brother screamed desperately; and 
by the energy of his tone Alice grasped that some- 


no 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


thing was seriously wrong. She started to close 
the hive quickly, and at that moment Carl saw 
the gray, dog-like form emerging from the wil- 
lows, half-way between Alice and himself. 

The animal snapped at the branches as it went 
through, and Alice glanced back just then, saw 
it, cried out, and started to run toward the house. 
Instantly the wolf threw up its head, caught sight 
of her, and with a sort of snarling howl, raced 
after her. 

Carl dashed in pursuit, forgetting that he had 
no weapon. Alice was losing ground. She 
would be overtaken before she could gain the 
cabin; but Carl gained a little with his last stock 
of energy, and when he was forty feet behind 
he picked up a large stone, aimed, and threw it. 

It hit the wolf hard on the flank. The animal 
stopped and looked back. Carl threw another 
stone and missed. But the wolf turned and 
rushed back at its new enemy. 

In his turn Carl bolted, with a confused no- 
tion of getting into the barn. But the big door 
stood wide open when he reached it. The place 
would only be a trap, and he wheeled about just 


STRANGE PERILS 


111 


in time to meet the rabid animal’s charge with a 
vigorous kick that caught it under the jaw and 
flung it backward. 

He remembered the sharp hatchet on his work- 
bench in the barn and rushed into the building to 
get it; but the wolf was after him like a flash. 
Carl checked it again with another furious kick, 
so hard this time that it went almost in a somer- 
sault backward. As it tumbled, Carl caught 
sight of the old fishing-seine that he had 
found. 

It was hanging on a peg at his side. He 
dragged it down, and as the maddened animal 
launched itself at him again, he flung the net 
over it. 

It stumbled and rolled, entangled. It scram- 
bled to its feet and once more fell, biting furi- 
ously at the meshes. Carl seized the hatchet and 
circled round, looking for a chance to place a 
blow, but he was afraid to come too close, and 
the rotten meshes were tearing under the animal’s 
struggles. 

At that moment Alice suddenly appeared at 
the barn-door, with Bob’s rifle in her hands. 


112 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


“Stand aside!'’ she called, and as Carl leaped 
away, the rifle cracked. 

The wolf leaped into the air, net and all, with 
a sharp yelp, and fell again, kicking blindly. The 
rifle banged again and a third time. The 
wretched animal's struggles grew feebler, and in 
a few moments it was dead. 

Then, with the strain off, Carl collapsed sud- 
denly on an empty beehive, and everything reeled 
around him. 

“Carl, Carl, what ’s the matter ?" cried Alice, 
dropping on her knees beside him. “You 're not 
hurt, are you? The wolf 's dead. Why, you 're 
dripping wet !" 

Carl recovered himself and reassured her. He 
gave her a toned-down account of what had hap- 
pened, but she did not suspect that the animal 
was rabid, nor did he venture to tell her. He 
warned her strictly against examining the body 
and presently he dragged it toward the river, dug 
a deep hole and buried it, net and all. It was 
several months before he ventured to tell his sis- 
ter what a frightful danger they had both es- 
caped; but the experience gave him such a fright 


STRANGE PERILS 113 

that for a long time he never ventured far into 
the woods without carrying firearms. 

Carl felt quite weak and shaky for the rest of 
that day, and after changing his wet clothes he 
sat down in the sun, petted by Alice as a semi- 
invalid. He was quite recovered by the next 
morning, however, and he went up the river and 
recovered his rod, which he had dropped in the 
raspberry slash. Looking at the rapid now, he 
wondered by what miracle he had come through 
it alive. 

The bees were doing nothing now, but carry- 
ing in pollen and water for brood-rearing, and 
they hung sullen and listless about the hives, very 
much inclined to be cross. Raspberry bloom was 
only a few days off ; they were all fairly well sup- 
plied with food, and there was nothing now to do 
but let them alone. 

Resuming their fishing and exploring rambles, 
Carl and Alice once followed the river down a 
little farther than they had ever gone before. 
About three miles below their cabin they came 
upon a well-marked trail, and out of curiosity they 
followed it. They had not gone far when they 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


114 

came to the edge of the woods and they stopped 
in surprise. 

They were on the border of a wide expanse of 
reeds and marsh-grass bordering the river. 
Near the woods it was fairly solid and dry, but 
farther out they could see a great expanse of 
quagmire, thinly overgrown with small grasses 
and spotted with pools of oily-looking water. It 
was a dangerous, unwholesome-seeming place. 

‘'Why, this must be Indian Slough said Carl, 
looking up and down the marsh. 

“What ’s that T' Alice inquired. 

“A historical spot. I thought I had spoken of 
it. The driver of my wagon told me about it 
when I was coming out from Morton, but I did n’t 
think it was so near us. 

“The story is that a war-party of Iroquois, dur- 
ing the great Indian raids on Canada in the 
French days, tried to land somewhere hereabouts, 
and was swallowed up bodily by this morass. It 
used to be called Marais aux Iroquois on account 
of that event, and that has been Englished into 
Indian Slough.” 

“Ugh!” shuddered Alice. “I don’t like it. It 


STRANGE PERILS 115 

looks as if it had swallowed up hundreds of men. 
Very likely it has, in its time.’’ 

‘T ’m sure the mosquitos would swallow any- 
body piecemeal, if he stayed long here,” Carl re- 
turned. ''Let ’s move on.” 

The trail led around the edge of the marsh, and 
they had followed it for scarcely twenty rods far- 
ther, when, to their amazement, they came sud- 
denly upon the edge of a clearing. 

It was only three or four acres fronting the 
marsh. It was dotted with stumps, and among 
them stood a log house and barn much like their 
own. A few hens scratched about a worn-down 
haystack. A hog lay stretched in the sun by the 
barn; and as they came in sight a hound dashed 
into view and set up a noisy baying. 

"Neighbors !” exclaimed Alice. "Who ’d have 
expected it ? And why on earth should anybody 
live in this feverish, mosquitoey, swampy place.” 

"Probably that marsh is full of muskrats,” 
Carl suggested. "The owner here may be a trap- 
per, and likes to live near his work.” 

Attracted by the noise of the dog, a couple of 
ragged children rushed out of the cabin, stared. 


ii6 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


and then bolted in again like scared rabbits. A 
woman came to the door, stared also, and stepped 
outside. 

‘1 ’m going up to get acquainted,’' said Alice, 
and she went boldly toward the house. 

Her brother followed at a little distance, loiter- 
ing intentionally to give Alice time to break the 
ice. The hound came bounding up, wagging his 
tail and sniffing at the gun Carl carried, and the 
boy paused to make friends with him. He was 
patting the brute’s head when a man came around 
the corner of the house. 

He was blinking, and looked as if he had been 
taking a nap in the sun. Big and strong-framed 
he was, black-haired, and black-bearded, and his 
face was almost as dark as an Indian’s. He was 
roughly clad in a flannel shirt, duffel trousers and 
moccasins, and he looked surprised, half-hostile, 
and half-shy. 

‘‘Hello, good-morning!” said Carl. ''Eon 
jour!'' he added, guessing at the man’s probable 
nationality; and then, at a second glance, he 
gasped with surprise. “Why, you — you ’re 
the—” 


STRANGE PERILS 117 

But the dark-faced squatter, limping heavily 
on one leg, had turned and dashed out of sight 
around the house again. 

Carl stared after him for a moment and then 
called to his sister. 

‘‘Come, Alice. We must go back/’ 

Something in his voice startled the girl. She 
glanced sharply at him and bade her new ac- 
quaintance farewell and they started back to- 
gether across the clearing. 

“What ’s the matter ?” she whispered. 

‘T ’ll tell you in a minute. Keep moving — not 
too fast.” 

He was not really much afraid of being at- 
tacked, but he felt much safer when they were 
in the cover of the woods. 

“That ’s where the wendigo lives,” he ex- 
plained at last. 

“What! the man you caught in the trap?” 

“I ’m sure of it. Of course I could n’t see the 
fellow’s face plain that night, but this man has a 
good general resemblance to him, and he walks 
with a most suspicious limp — in the same leg, too, 
that the trap caught. Besides, he bolted as soon 


ii8 WILDERNESS HONEY 
as he had a look at me. He knew who I was, all 
right. Yes, I ’m certain it ’s our honey-thief. 
What did you find out from the woman?’’ 

‘1 could n’t get her to say much, and I could n’t 
understand half her dialect. She told me their 
name — Larue, I think. She said there were lots 
of ducks and muskrats in the slough, and they 
didn’t mind the mosquitos. And oh Carl! she 
had two of the most splendid black bear skins! 
I ’d give anything to have them. The cabin was 
an awful place — like a pig-sty, but there were two 
children with the loveliest brown, dirty faces I 
ever saw.” 

'Trobably half French and half Ojibway or 
Chippewa,” said Carl. ‘‘Larue certainly sounds 
French enough. I ’m afraid they ’re a rough lot, 
and I ’m sorry we have them for our nearest 
neighbors.” 

They reached home in perfect safety, but the 
incident revived their former feelings of uneasi- 
ness. However, this wore away as the days and 
nights passed without disturbance; and Carl felt 
relieved to remember that Larue had seemed far 


STRANGE PERILS 119 

more frightened at the encounter than he himself 
had been. 

The weather was growing steadily warmer. 
Frequent rains brought vegetation forward with 
the marvelous rapidity of the northern summer. 
The little, pale, greenish flowers of the raspberry 
were almost open. And at last one morning Carl 
came dashing into the cabin with a shout : 

‘The bees are getting honey 
Alice hastened out to look. The air was full 
of flashing wings and a resonant hum. The main 
honey-flow had started. The crisis of their for- 
tunes was at hand. 


CHAPTER IV 


HONEY AND SWARMS 

T he sullen listlessness that had hung over 
the apiary for over a week was gone. 
Bees were at work from every hive, coming and 
going with a swift activity like the days of the 
willow bloom. 

^‘Hurrah! We must put on the supers at 
once,’’ cried Alice. ‘T believe we ought to have 
had them on several days ago.” 

Breakfast was hurried through that morning, 
and no dishes were washed up after it. They 
hurried down to the barn to bring up the pre- 
pared supers, placing one beside each hive, so 
that they could all be put on at once. 

The supers for extracted honey were exactly 
the same size as the body of the hive itself, with- 
out either top or bottom, and each containing 
eight ready-built frames of comb. The cover of 
the hive is removed and the super set upon it, 
then the cover replaced on the top of the two- 


120 


HONEY AND SWARMS 


121 


Story edifice. Usually a sheet of zinc queen-ex- 
cluder is placed between the two, the perforations 
so accurately made that they will let the workers 
pass into the upper story, while the larger-bodied 
queen cannot get through. The lower story is 
then known as the brood-chamber, and the ideal 
condition is for the queen to keep this division 
constantly full of the cycle of eggs, larvae, and 
hatching bees, while the workers store all the 
honey in the super, convenient for taking off. 

A good deal of comb honey in one-pound sec- 
tions was to be produced also, and Alice had al- 
ready picked out the strongest colonies for this 
work. Section honey is a fancy product and sells 
at a high price, and the apiarists counted on this 
to pay off the $500 due in August. For that rea- 
son, the comb-honey crop was of the most im- 
mediate importance, though there would be a 
greater quantity of the extracted honey. Nat- 
urally, bees will store much more honey when 
built combs are furnished them, but the extracted 
honey sells more slowly, and at little more than 
half the price. 

They had already prepared more than a hun- 


122 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


dred section supers, — boxes of the same length 
and width as the brood-chamber, but only half the 
depth, — each containing thirty-two sections with 
foundation. One of these was set accurately on 
the top of each of the seventy colonies selected to 
gather the fancy crop. The deep, extracting su- 
pers of built combs were distributed among the 
rest of the bees. 

Carl and Alice worked hard all that day and for 
part of the next forenoon, putting on the supers. 
The weather was hot and moist, splendid honey 
weather. More and more of the pale raspberry 
blossorns were opening, though as yet the honey- 
flow was barely at its start. 

That evening Alice peeped into some of the 
newly placed supers, irresistibly curious to know 
what the bees had done. The supers of combs 
were full of the insects, cleaning out the cells and 
varnishing them ready for honey-storage, and 
here and there was even a glistening patch of 
fresh honey. In the supers of sections no combs 
were yet built of course ; but the bees were cluster- 
ing there in masses, and evidently preparing for 
work in earnest. 


HONEY AND SWARMS 


123 

All looked most promising, but both she and 
Carl knew that everything depended on the 
weather from day to day. For the honey-flow is 
the most capricious thing in the world. If the 
weather is too wet, the bees cannot work, and 
the honey is washed out of the blossoms. If it is 
too dry, the secretion of nectar in the flowers will 
cease altogether. A cold spell, too, will check the 
honey-flow, and high winds will dry it up. Often 
the clouding over of the sky, or a shift in the wind 
will produce a heavy flow or stop one. It is regu- 
lated by faint differences of temperature and 
moisture, and the ideal weather is warm and 
damp, with, if possible, a suggestion of thunder- 
storm in the air. In such a day a good colony 
of bees will often bring in ten pounds or more of 
honey, so that Alice and Carl had figured that 
every good day would be worth easily a hundred 
dollars. 

The next morning was warm, and the bees 
worked merrily. Now that the honey-flow had 
started, they were no longer cross. Their owners 
could walk up and down the rows of hives, 
through the clouds of flying bees that came almost 


124 WILDERNESS HONEY 
as thick as snowflakes, and there was scarcely 
any danger of being stung. Carl was standing in 
the midst of this activity, observing the flight 
with satisfaction, when a volley of bees suddenly 
poured with a loud roaring from one of the hives 
nearest him. 

‘'Swarm, Alice!” he yelled. 

It was the first swarm of that season, and of 
course it came from one of the strongest colo- 
nies. Carl marked the hive that had sent it out 
and turned his attention to the bees in the air. 

For some seconds the cloud of insects swirled 
round and round, then it drifted slowly toward 
the cabin. Finding no place to alight there, it 
floated irresolutely about in one direction and an- 
other, and finally moved down toward the river, 
flying about twenty feet from the ground. 

Here it suddenly concentrated by a small cedar 
tree. A few bees settled on the tip of a long 
branch; in a moment there was a brown cluster, 
growing as he looked at it, and in five minutes the 
branch was bending down under the weight of a 
mass of bees that would nearly have filled a five- 
gallon pail. 


HONEY AND SWARMS 125 

^ What a tremendously big swarm exclaimed 
Alice, who had come to look at it. ''Did you see 
the hive they came from? Then let 's attend to 
it, and then we can hive the swarm.’’ 

When they removed the cover of the hive that 
had swarmed, the super was seen to be nearly 
empty of bees, though it contained a good deal of 
fresh honey. Lifting it off, they saw that the 
brood-chamber also appeared sadly depleted. 
Fully two-thirds of the bees had gone with the 
swarm. 

"Is n’t there any way of keeping them from 
swarming, Alice?” asked Carl. "We’d get so 
much more honey if the colonies did n’t break in 
two like this.” 

"None,” Alice replied, busy with the smoker. 
"Except by seeing that they always have plenty 
of storage room for honey. They don’t usually 
swarm till they get crowded. This colony was 
probably feeling crowded before we put the super 
on it ; they got the swarming idea fixed, and when 
the honey-flow started well, away they went.” 

Meanwhile Alice was taking out one comb after 
another, glancing at each and replacing it, till she 


126 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


came at last to the most marvelous thing in the 
world of bees — the mystery of the queen-cells. 

There they were, five or six on a single comb, 
great, peanut shaped protuberances, some sealed 
with a rounded capping, others still open at the 
tip, showing the white young queen within, float- 
ing in a mass of royal jelly. 

For when the bees become queenless, they have 
the science to rear a new one to save the colony 
from perishing. An ordinary worker-egg that 
is just hatching into the larva is profusely fed 
with royal jelly, that strangely prepared food of 
which no one knows the exact composition. In- 
stead of growing in the ordinary cell, the larva 
is given one of these great waxen cones for its 
nursery; and instead of hatching in twenty-one 
days into a worker bee, it hatches in sixteen into 
a fully fledged virgin queen. The first prepara- 
tion for swarming is the starting of a batch of 
these queen-cells, so that the colony shall not be 
left queenless when the queen departs with the 
swarm, and the swarm does not leave till some of 
the cells are sealed over. 

Whenever a queen loses her life, or grows so 


HONEY AND SWARMS 127 

old as to be useless, the same sort of queen-cells 
are started to replace her. The only exception is 
when a queen dies in the winter, and there are no 
eggs from which a new one can be reared; and 
then, unless man gives help, the colony quickly 
vanishes. 

Carl had seen queen-cells often enough before, 
but he never ceased to regard them with amaze- 
ment. He peeped into an unsealed cell, took out 
a little of the thick, white, royal jelly and tasted 
it on the end of a twig. 

‘‘Rich, thick, sour, and sweet all at once,” he 
commented. “It turns a worker into a queen. I 
wonder what it would do to me if I ate a lot of 
it.” 

“You ’d be a king,” said Alice, promptly. “Put 
those cells back. They ’ll get chilled. And let ’s 
go and catch that swarm.” 

Carl had a number of hives prepared for such 
emergencies, each with ten new frames of founda- 
tion. The old hive, now out of action, they car- 
ried away to a new stand, and placed the pre- 
pared hive where it had stood. Upon it they put 
the partly-filled super that the swarm had left. 


128 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


Alice now brought out the large water-pail 
from the house, and they walked down to where 
the swarm was settled. It still clung there in 
a big, brown, murmuring, pearl-shaped mass. 
There they would probably hang for hours, till 
they had decided in their mysterious councils 
what hollow tree in the forest they would make 
for. 

But they were not to leave man’s control. Carl 
climbed a little way into the tree, then, leaning 
far out, slipped the tin pail close under the swarm 
and shook the branch smartly. With a thump 
the whole mass dropped into the pail, not a bee 
flying. They seethed and flowed like molasses, 
while Carl hastily jumped down, ran to the hive 
he had prepared, and poured them down at its 
entrance. 

They began to crawl in at once, and among the 
rest Alice caught sight of the queen just enter- 
ing the hive with a mass of bees. This meant 
definite possession being taken. Immediately the 
bees spread over the entrance-board began to 
‘Tan.” The swarm was safely hived. 

A new swarm usually works with great vigor. 


HONEY AND SWARMS 129 

knowing that it has a great deal of time to make 
up, and this one might be expected to finish the 
super. The parent colony was now out of ac- 
tion; but it would hatch out a new queen in a 
week, and would build up strong again before 
fall. 

'We must really do something to keep swarm- 
ing down,’’ said Alice, anxiously. "Of course, 
we want to increase our bees, but if the colonies 
break up now, it will cut our honey crop in two. 
And we must get the honey.” 

"Nothing to do, then, but to go all through 
them and see if any more are starting queen- 
cells,” replied Carl. "It ’s rather a big job, 
though, and I wish Bob were here to help us.” 

However, it was not necessary to tear all the 
hives open. Some, they knew, were too weak to 
think of swarming. With others it was sufficient 
to glance at the entrance and into the super to 
make sure of the steady, contented activity. 
About twenty they went through thoroughly, and 
in five of them they found the beginnings of 
queen-cells — an acorn-shaped cup, with an almost 
microscopic larvse in it surrounded by royal jelly. 


130 WILDERNESS HONEY 

These they tore down at once, and marked the 

hives for close watching in future. 

Next morning they continued this inspection, 
and three swarms came out while they were at 
work. One of them settled in the top of such a 
high tree that it could not be reached. They had 
to let it stay, and late that afternoon it took wing 
again and made off, across the woods, out of sight. 

The others they hived successfully, and they 
made all possible haste to look through all the 
suspicious colonies for signs of swarming. De- 
spite all efforts, however, the bees seemed to be 
getting ahead of them, and they were working 
frantically when a voice hailed them from the 
direction of the river : 

‘‘Hello, busy bees 

Bob was coming up through the willows from 
the direction of the river, and, dropping every- 
thing, they rushed to meet him in delight and 
astonishment. 

“How in the world did you get here ? Where ’s 
your wagon? You didn’t walk?” cried Carl. 

Bob waved his hand triumphantly toward the 
river. He had come from Morton by water, in 


HONEY AND SWARMS 


131 

a second-hand boat that he had bought cheaply in 
the village. It was not beautiful ; it was a home- 
made affair, which could be poled, paddled, or 
rowed, or perhaps sailed too. It was old and 
rough and needed painting badly, but it was 
water-tight and had cost only nine dollars. Alice 
was enchanted; a boat was what she had been 
longing for most of all. 

Bob had had rather a hard up-stream pull, for 
he brought quite a cargo with him besides his 
trunk — potatoes, dried apples, prunes, butter, 
flour, and two more cases of bee-supplies. 

“And here ’re your queens,” he added, taking a 
package from his pocket. 

There were seven mailing-cages, six tied in 
one parcel, and the other, containing the three- 
dollar breeding queen, by itself. Carl looked 
through the wire gauze cover at this valuable in- 
sect, surrounded by her attendants. 

“She does n’t look any bigger or better than 
the rest of them,” he complained. 

“Wait till we see how she performs,” said Alice, 
hopefully. 

The mailing-cages were small, hollowed-out 


132 WILDERNESS HONEY 
wooden blocks, covered on one side with wire 
cloth; each contained an Italian queen, with half 
a dozen attendant bees, that had traveled all the 
way in the mail-bags from Tennessee. One small 
compartment in each cage was filled with soft 
candy, and most of this had been eaten on the 
journey. 

As these queens had already been too long con- 
fined, Alice at once made preparations for in- 
troducing them — a matter of no small difficulty. 
For a colony of bees, even if deprived of their 
queen, will not easily accept a strange one. They 
prefer the more lengthy plan of raising a batch of 
queen-cells, and will kill any new queen put into 
the hive. Sometimes, however, they can be 
thrown into a panic by smoking and beating on 
the hive, and the new queen slipped in while they 
are too demoralized to notice her. The more 
common plan, however, is the one that Alice 
adopted. 

She had already selected seven colonies where 
the queens appeared to be laying badly, and she 
now searched these queens out and killed them. 
Tearing of? a strip of pasteboard on one end of 


HONEY AND SWARMS 


133 

a mailing-cage, she revealed a small hole plugged 
with soft honey-candy; then she pushed the cage 
into the hive, down between the combs. The bees 
would at once eat out the candy, thus opening 
the hole and releasing the queen, and the sweet 
would put them in a good humor, so that they 
would be likely to accept her without trouble. 

All but one of the seven were safely introduced. 
The seventh was found next morning dead in 
front of the hive where the bees had thrown her 
body out. Luckily it was not the three-dollar 
queen. 

Late that afternoon it rained a little, and the 
next day was hot and muggy. It was perhaps 
the best honey day of the whole season. The 
bees were almost frantic over the abundance of 
sweet. The apiary roared like a huge mill. 
Carl, who had gone fishing, declared that he could 
hear it a quarter of a mile away. Long after 
dark the apiary still roared sonorously from every 
hive, where the bees were fanning furiously with 
their wings, driving currents of air between the 
combs to ripen the fresh honey. Bob looked into 
the supers after flying had ceased, and reported 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


134 

that many of the combs were entirely full of 
sparkling honey, clear as water. Of course, it 
was still unripe and unsealed, and would need 
the care of the bees for some time before taking 
on the rich, thick consistency of finished honey, 
ready to be sealed. 

For the time being the apiarists had checked 
the swarming and had a few days of leisure. 
Now and again a swarm did come out despite all 
precaution, but they caught nearly all of these, 
so that there was a fresh row of new colonies be- 
ing built up. 

Then a succession of chilly days cut the honey- 
flow short. The bees turned sulky and cross. 
It was impossible to go among the hives without 
being stung, but after the third day honey began 
to come in slowly once more. 

Strawberries were now ripe, and could be 
picked in the greatest profusion. Alice gathered 
them daily; so did the boys, and in fact for a few 
days they ate hardly anything else. Alice longed 
to make jam, but had no jam-pots. 

Carl went out one morning to pick berries, but 
returned within an hour, looking disturbed. In 


HONEY AND SWARMS 135 

one hand he held his half-filled pail, and in the 
other a rusty tin pan. 

''What do you think of this, Bob?'’ he de- 
manded. 

The pan was half full of some dark fluid, at 
which his brother sniffed carefully. 

"Maple syrup,” he pronounced. 

"Yes, and something else. See that green sedi- 
ment? That's Paris green. I found the pan 
under the bushes, just beyond the hives.” 

"Poison!” cried Alice. "Why, it must have 
been meant to kill the bees 1” 

"I guess Mr. Larue was trying to get revenge 
for his sore leg,” said Carl, grimly. "This must 
have been laid some days ago, for there 's rain- 
water in it. Luckily the bees won't touch any 
other sweet when they 're getting honey.” 

In his first wrath. Bob declared that he would 
take his gun, go down to the squatter's cabin, 
and accuse him of the trick; but their calmer 
judgment decided that it was best to let the mat- 
ter pass unnoticed. So it would probably have 
passed, but for a chance encounter of Carl's a 
few days later. 


136 WILDERNESS HONEY 

He was going through the woods with his shot- 
gun, and came upon a trout brook about a mile 
from the cabin — a stream well known to him, 
though he seldom fished there. He was quietly 
following up the bank when he perceived Larue a 
few yards in front of him. The squatter was 
smoking a clay pipe and angling industriously 
with a short rod. A double-barrelled shotgun 
stood against a tree behind him. 

They sighted each other almost simultaneously, 
and for a moment stared at one another in sur- 
prise and distrust. 

''W’at you want?'’ said the half-breed. ''You 
try to creep up on me, eh?” 

"I didn't know you were here,'' said Carl. 
"But, look here, you 'd better not try to kill any 
more of our bees.'' 

"Keel your bees? Don't know w'at you 
mean.'' 

"Yes, you do. I found the poison you put out. 
You could be arrested for that — '' 

"You have me arrest ! Why, I keel you first !'' 
cried Larue. 

"Don't try it. And you keep away from our 


HONEY AND SWARMS 


137 

camp in future. When we hear anything after 
dark we ’re as likely as not to shoot.” 

Carl held his gun ready, for he half-expected 
Larue to attack him. But the squatter did not 
reach for his weapon ; he only assailed Carl with 
such abuse in mixed French and English that the 
boy almost lost his temper. He half raised his 
gun, and then, as good sense came back to him, 
lowered it quickly. 

‘We don’t want any trouble with you,” he said, 
trying to speak coolly. “If we do have any, it ’ll 
be your own fault. But you keep away from our 
place. Now I ’ve warned you.” 

He stepped back into the cedars and walked 
away, his ears alert for any suspicious sound be- 
hind him. But as he cooled down he felt that 
he had acted most injudiciously; and he felt, in 
fact, so annoyed with himself that he determined 
not to mention the matter when he got home. 

It took him some time, however, to calm his 
irritation to this extent, and meanwhile he walked 
rapidly and rather aimlessly through the woods 
toward the northwest. He was thinking of any- 
thing but his directions, when he came upon the 


138 WILDERNESS HONEY 
remains of an old road, probably a disused tim- 
ber-road that might lead to Morton. Following 
this for a couple of hundred yards, he came in 
sight of a little lake that he had never seen be- 
fore. 

It was about two miles wide and contained one 
small, rocky islet. Fire and storm seemed to 
have swept the shores, for they were covered for 
more than a hundred yards from the water with 
tangled dead wood, ricks of underbrush, sprout- 
ing second growths, and raspberry canes every- 
where. In fact there seemed to be square miles 
of wild raspberry around the lake. It was cov- 
ered with bloom, but not a bee did he see. There 
was no necessity for their bees to travel so far as 
this to find all the raspberry bloom they wanted. 

'What a magnificent spot for an apiary!” Carl 
reflected, as he gazed about him. 

In addition to the raspberries, Carl noticed on 
a little rise of ground near him, a whole grove of 
large basswood trees. It was too early for their 
bloom, but he was going over to inspect them 
when something seemed to strike him heavily on 
the head. 


HONEY AND SWARMS 


139 

The boy dropped in his tracks, and probably for 
several minutes he lay unconscious. He came to 
himself feeling dazed and sick, with a dim idea 
that some one had clubbed him. His mind turned 
to Larue, as he got weakly to his feet, but no one 
was anywhere in sight. His hat lay on the 
ground. He recovered it, and was startled to see 
two small holes through the crown. At the same 
time he became aware that blood was running 
down his forehead. 

It flashed upon him that he had been shot and 
shot through the head ! He turned sick and faint 
at the idea and wondered how he came to be still 
alive. He hardly dared to put his hand to his 
head, fearing to find a gaping cavity, but he could 
not feel exactly what he could call a wound, 
though there was a very sore spot on the top of 
his skull. He raked away a good deal of loose 
hair, and blood was trickling down freely. 

He was somewhat reassured at finding the 
wound was not going to be immediately fatal. 
Looking at the holes in his hat, he saw that they 
must have been made by a small-caliber, high- 
powered, rifle bullet, and this exonerated Larue, 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


140 

for it was a shotgun that the squatter had been 
carrying. Carl had heard no report ; very likely 
the shot had been fired by some sportsman at a 
mile distance, perhaps on the other side of the 
lake. Missing its proper mark, the bullet had 
driven on till Carl had had the misfortune to 
come in its way. 

He made his way down to the lake and con- 
trived a cold compress on his head with his hand- 
kerchief, and began to think of making his way 
home. He was so dazed, still, that he entirely 
forgot the old lumber road by which he had come 
in, and started through the woods in what seemed 
to be the direction of the cabin. 

He felt very weak and sick when he attempted 
to walk, but he kept going for a long time, till he 
came out upon a wide, half-burned strip, choked 
with wild-raspberry vines. A rapid, shallow 
brook hurried down the middle of the opening. 

He had never seen this place before that he 
could remember, and suddenly it seemed to him 
that all his directions had gone suddenly wrong. 
He had not the slightest idea in which direction 
the cabin lay. 


HONEY AND SWARMS 


141 

At this moment it occurred to him that he had 
a pocket compass. He consulted it, tried to think 
out his position, but his head ached too violently 
for any mental effort. However, he set out again 
in a new direction, and, after half an hour’s un- 
steady walking, came into another raspberry 
slash — which he presently recognized as the same 
one he had passed before. 

At this new horror added to his pain and weak- 
ness, his strength failed entirely. He fell among 
the flowering canes and lay there for a long time, 
partly in a sort of stupor, partly in dull anger 
against the stupid recklessness of men who go into 
the woods with rifles having an effective range of 
two miles. 

He was parched with thirst and fever, but could 
hardly summon energy enough to crawl down to 
the stream. Finally he accomplished it, drank, 
and dipped his head in the water, and felt re- 
freshed. He was able to think more clearly. 

He had his compass ; he knew the directions, but 
he could form no sort of idea whether the cabin 
lay north, south, east, or west. He could not 
remember definitely in which direction he had 


142 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


traveled after meeting Larue, and his wanderings 
since that time had completely confused him. 

As he lay there he heard the murmur of bees 
among the raspberry blossoms. They were prob- 
ably his own bees, he reflected dimly, and he en- 
vied them their wings and their instinct that led 
them straight home across the forest. And then 
it struck him that he could not possibly be more 
than two miles from home, or the bees would not 
be working there in such numbers. 

He thought he saw a chance of help. A laden 
bee flies home in a proverbially straight line. He 
watched the insects as they crawled over the blos- 
soms and finally rose laden into the air. They 
circled, rising in spirals, and then darted across 
the open space and over the tree-tops. It was 
easy to follow the black specks for some distance 
against the blue sky. 

Carl sighted their course carefully with the 
compass took another drink at the stream, and 
set off on their trail. It was a painful tramp. 
His head ached excruciatingly, and when by ac- 
cident he tripped or stumbled, the jar left him 
weak almost to fainting. A dozen times he sat 


HONEY AND SWARMS 143 

down to rest and almost despaired of getting any- 
where. 

It seemed to him that he had walked miles when 
he came to another raspberry thicket, and here he 
found the guiding bees again. Again he sighted 
their course, and they took the same homeward 
direction as the first had done. 

Clearly he was on the right track and, some- 
what encouraged, he forced himself ahead again. 
But in less than fifteen minutes he came out upon 
the shore of a rapid river. 

Here was an obstacle. The stream was fully 
sixty feet wide and looked deep. Carl wondered 
how so large a river had existed in the neighbor- 
hood, without their having seen it, and began to 
have doubts as to his course after all. Perhaps 
these were merely wild bees from some hollow 
tree. However, he was determined to follow 
them home. They were crossing the river, and 
he would have to cross it. He picked up a long, 
dry cedar pole for a float in case he went out of 
his depth, and waded in. 

Halfway across he stepped into a deep hole, and 
was immediately carried off his feet by the force 


144 WILDERNESS HONEY 
of the current. Then he had reason to bless his 
pole, for it saved him from drowning, though he 
was rolled over and over and half choked. He 
managed to recover his footing and scrambled 
ashore — but on the same side of the river as be- 
fore. 

He was more dazed than ever by the ducking, 
and he started down the bank to look for a bet- 
ter place to cross. Bees were going over his head 
in great numbers. The roar was tremendous, 
and now he noticed that they were crossing the 
river in both directions, coming and going. 

Perhaps, he thought, he was on the right side 
after all, and he stumbled on for another hun- 
dred yards. He encountered a beaten path, fol- 
lowed it, and the woods opened into a clearing. 
All at once the noise of the bees rose prodigiously, 
and like a flash the whole landscape turned famil- 
iar. 

It was home. He saw the roof of the cabin. 
The bees had led him straight after all. His 
strength almost failed him in this last lap, but 
Bob saw him coming and rushed anxiously to 
meet him. 


HONEY AND SWARMS 145 

‘‘What ’s the matter he cried as he ran up. 

“I Ve been shot/’ Carl muttered. “Plumb 
through the head.” 

And then he collapsed, so that Bob had to call 
Alice for help and carry him into the house. 

He recovered when they were sponging his 
head and cutting away the hair to get at his 
wound. The blood had caked and had stopped 
its bleeding. It must have looked gruesome, for 
he heard Alice and Bob discussing how they could 
get a doctor. 

“I don’t know that it ’s so bad, after all,” said 
Bob, after more of Carl’s crown had been washed 
clean, and after a little more examination he be- 
gan to laugh. 

“Get up!” he said. “You’re not hurt. It’s 
only a graze, hardly deep enough to draw blood !” 

Carl looked astonished and foolish. Alice, who 
had been pale, but collected, gave Bob a reproach- 
ful look, sat down suddenly, and began to cry a 
little. 

“Just a little m-more, though, and he would 
have been k-killed !” she stammered. 

“Yes,” said Bob, more seriously, “half an inch 


146 WILDERNESS HONEY 
lower, and that bullet might have done for you. 
How did it happen? Who could have shot at 
you V 

Carl gave an account of his adventure. As 
soon as he learned that his deadly wound was 
only a scratch he felt remarkably better. A good 
part of his collapse must have been due to pure 
mental effect. But it was not all imaginary; the 
graze of a high-powered bullet upon the top of 
the head was stunning enough, and when he tried 
to get up he found himself still weak and stag- 
gery. 

^‘But I Ve found a superb place for another 
bee-yard,’' he told them. “I don’t think it ’s more 
than three miles from here, and there ’s enough 
raspberry and basswood there for the bees to 
work themselves to death. It would be a gold 
mine to us. We ought to move half the bees over 
there at once.” 


CHAPTER V 


FAILING HOPES 

N ext day Carl was still feeling unsteady 
and ill, but on the following morning he 
felt well enough to guide Bob to the new apiary 
site, and the two boys went oflf together. They 
returned full of enthusiasm. 

‘There must be half a square mile of bass- 
wood trees,'’ said Bob. “So we 'd have a double 
chance, if the berries failed." 

“Yes, and the best is that there 's a road going 
to the place," Carl added. “The old lumber road 
I told you about. It comes out on the road to 
Morton, a mile or so from here. It would only 
need a day or two with an ax to clear it out for a 
wagon to pass." 

“This yard is certainly getting crowded," said 
Alice, thoughtfully. “With all the new swarms, 
we 'll have over two hundred colonies soon, and a 
hundred is as many as most locations will sup- 
147 


148 WILDERNESS HONEY 

port. But what about the expense of moving? 
It would cost six dollars a day to get a team from 
Morton, and we ’d have to build a honey-house 
there, too.’' 

believe it would pay us even if it cost a hun- 
dred dollars,” said Carl. ‘'But I suppose we can’t 
do anything till some one goes to Morton and gets 
Mr. Farr’s permission to move them. The mort- 
gage says they ’re not to be moved without per- 
mission.” 

This was undoubtedly the case, and, as none of 
them had time to go to the village just then, 
the matter was dropped temporarily. But new 
events speedily made it a live issue again. 

A little warm rain fell in the afternoon, and 
next morning the honey-flow, which had been fail- 
ing, began again profusely. And then, suddenly, 
a riot of swarming broke out among the bees. 

A slow, light honey-flow always induces more 
swarming than a heavy one, and Alice had been 
nervous about the matter for some days. On 
this morning she went out with Carl to examine a 
few of the hives, and in the very first they found 
what they had feared to find — a cluster of the 


FAILING HOPES 


149 

peanut-shaped queen-cells. They were not quite 
sealed, but would have been finished the next day, 
and the colony would have swarmed. 

Carl cut them all out. This treatment usually 
delays swarming at any rate for a week, till the 
colony can raise a fresh batch of cells. But oc- 
casionally, when they have the swarming fever 
badly, they will swarm, cells or not, and it is, 
moreover, very difficult to make sure of destroy- 
ing every cell on ten combs swarming with bees. 

The next colony had three heavy supers of 
honey piled on top of the brood-chamber, and 
when they got down to it at last they found no 
signs of swarming. But the third colony had 
cells just started. 

Growing uneasy, they went to look at the hive 
where the three-dollar queen had been placed. 
They could not afford to let that queen lead her 
bees away to the woods, but there was not much 
danger of it, for a queen less than a year old 
seldom swarms. 

But on opening the hive they found the brood- 
combs choked with honey, few eggs laid, and 
swarming cells well under way. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


150 

‘‘Why, this queen must be no good V exclaimed 
Carl. 

“No, it is n’t that,” replied Alice. “But a 
queen never lays well just after she ’s come out 
of the mailing-cage, and the bees have got ahead 
of her and filled up the combs with honey where 
the brood should be. The poor queen has no 
room left to lay in ; she feels crowded and that ’s 
what gave them the idea of swarming.” 

It was lucky they had discovered it in time. 
They cut out the incipient queen-cells, gave empty 
combs, and felt sure that they had made the col- 
ony safe. They were just proceeding to another 
of the colonies where one of the new queens was, 
when, with a loud roaring, a storm of bees began 
to volley out of a hive at the farthest end of the 
yard. 

They surged about wildly in the air for some 
time, and then settled in a cluster on the tip of a 
small cedar where swarms had alighted several 
times before. Alice kept an eye on them, while 
Carl hurried off to the barn for fresh hives. 

Before he could get back another swarm roared 
out of a second hive, eddied about like a cloud of 


FAILING HOPES 151 

smoke, and finally settled. And then a third hive 
swarmed. 

When bees are in the mood for it, the flying of 
a single swarm will sometimes start a perfect up- 
roar of swarming throughout an apiary, and col- 
onies will become carried away by the excite- 
ment and swarm without being normally ready for 
it. That seemed to be the case this time. Bob 
came running out to help, but a fourth swarm was 
already in the air. Then came two more, which 
united and settled in one enormous cluster, the 
size of a large bucket. Bees fairly darkened the 
air ; the apiarists lost track of how many swarms 
were out or where they came from, and the noise 
was like a small tornado. 

The three rushed about frantically, gathering 
up such clustered swarms as they could most 
easily reach, and Bob was instructed to dash a 
dipperful of water right into the top of every 
colony that might be likely to abscond. Such a 
drenching is an effectual check to swarming for 
that day at any rate and does the bees no harm. 

This vigorous treatment produced some quiet. 
No more swarms had emerged for about fifteen 


152 WILDERNESS HONEY 
minutes, when the familiar crescendo roar 
sounded again, and Bob uttered a despairing yell. 
From the three-dollar queen’s colony the bees 
were pouring out like steam from an escape-valve. 

‘'Oh! don’t let them go!” shrieked Alice. 

Bob rushed up and dashed water into the en- 
trance; Carl poured in a volume of smoke, but 
nothing could stop them. There was already an 
enormous cloud of bees circling over the hive, 
and the only thing now was to wait till they had 
clustered. But they did not seem inclined to clus- 
ter. The swarm drifted about uncertainly, here 
and there, now high, now low, and finally began 
to edge toward the river. 

Expecting that they would settle on the willows 
by the water, the three apiarists followed it anx- 
iously. But it did not settle. It went over the 
trees, and out above the stream. 

‘They’re going across! They’re making 
straight for the woods!” cried Alice. “That 
queen is lost !” 

“No, they ’ll surely cluster a little further on,” 
Bob exclaimed. “I ’m going to follow them up. 
We can’t lose that queen. I ’ll bring them back.” 


FAILING HOPES 


153 

He snatched up a grain sack that they had al- 
ready been using in collecting swarms, jumped 
into the boat and rowed himself across the river. 

The runaways did not travel very fast, and he 
could see the swarm gyrating and drifting like 
a cloud of smoke over the trees. But it moved too 
fast for him to keep up with it over that rough 
ground. He kept it in sight for nearly a quarter 
of a mile, and then it faded like mist into the sky. 

It might be that the bees had already selected 
some hollow tree for their new home, and had 
gone straight to it without clustering. This 
sometimes happens, but very rarely ; a swarm al- 
most always settles and hangs for some time, 
probably as a means of getting its force together, 
ready for the final journey, and Bob felt sure that 
this swarm would sooner or later settle on a 
branch. 

He kept on, therefore, scrutinizing the trees 
carefully for a pendant brown bunch. No such 
thing appeared, and though he stopped and lis- 
tened at every few rods he did not hear the hum- 
ming drone that a swarm keeps up for some time 
after it has settled. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


154 

He lost count of distance, stumbling along with 
his eyes in the air, but he must have gone a 
mile from the apiary when he was stopped by a 
savage, guttural grunt, apparently close by. Just 
ahead of him was a dense clump of willows and 
alders fringing a small stream, and as he gazed, 
he thought he saw the dim outline of an animal 
through the shrubbery, something large and tall 
like a buck. 

Anxious to get a look. Bob edged sideways and 
parted the willows a little. He was thunder- 
struck to see a bull moose standing in the shallow 
water and glaring at him. 

Now he remembered having heard at Morton 
that moose had lately been seen in this district. 
At one time they were plentiful; then for years 
they had vanished, and were only beginning to 
reappear as they strayed south from the great 
game-preserves to the north. 

At most times of the year they are exceedingly 
shy and timid animals, hard to get in view. Bob 
was amazed that this one had let him come up 
so close, and he was edging forward to get a 
better look through the tangle of under brush in 


FAILING HOPES 155 

front of him when the animal charged at him fu- 
riously. 

He jumped aside, found himself near a low- 
branched cedar, and scrambled up it. He had 
just time to draw his legs out of reach when the 
moose crashed into the tree with a force that 
jarred it to the roots. 

When Bob recovered his breath he had time to 
feel astonished and indignant at this unprovoked 
attack. Bull moose are sometimes dangerous in 
the rutting season of autumn, but never in early 
summer, and the horns of this one had not yet 
quite outgrown their 'Velvet.” 

But he was clearly in a murderous temper. He 
stamped, tore up the earth and brushes around 
the cedar, gritted his teeth, and cocked his eye 
upward at the bee-keeper with a baleful glare. 
Then, all at once. Bob saw what was the matter. 

The lower part of the bull’s right shoulder was 
mangled and torn with wounds that were evi- 
dently not more than a day or two old. They 
might have been made by the claws of a bear; 
more likely by a charge of buckshot. Anyhow, 
they were enough to account for a good deal 


156 WILDERNESS HONEY 

of bad temper, for they must have caused intense 
pain. 

But the bulbs hostility did not seem to last long. 
Bob was looking upwards to see if he could climb 
higher in his tree, and when he glanced down 
again the space beneath him was empty. The 
moose had slipped silently away into the woods. 

Whether he had really fled or was merely hid- 
ing in a near-by thicket Bob could not tell. He 
hesitated to come down, and for some minutes he 
sat dubiously in the branches, looking carefully 
about him for the enemy. Then something 
caught his eye that gave him a joyful surprise. 

About twenty yards away there was a great 
brownish lump clustered at the tip of a low maple 
sapling, which bent slightly under the weight. 
Bob stared at it intently. It was certainly a 
swarm of bees. It could hardly be any other than 
the one he was chasing. If it had not been for 
the bull moose he might not have seen them, for 
they were aside from the straight line, and so 
near the ground that an elevated post was needed 
to distinguish them. 

He was desperately anxious to secure them 


FAILING HOPES 


157 

now, for there was no telling when they might 
take wing again. He waited for some ten min- 
utes very impatiently. No sign nor sound came 
from the moose, and Bob slid to earth and has- 
tened toward the little maple. 

The little tree had sagged over so that the 
swarm hung no higher than his shoulders, and it 
could be captured in the neatest possible manner. 
He carefully slipped the mouth of his sack over 
the swarm till the whole cluster was inside. 
Then he gathered the sack around the branch they 
hung by, and shook it violently. There was a 
sudden roar, and a heavy weight dropped into the 
sack. He had secured all the swarm, except for 
a few bees that flew about in wild dismay at this 
disappearance of their comrades. 

Much elated. Bob turned back toward home. 
The sack hummed and stirred with the efforts of 
the angry insects to get out. But he had hardly 
gone ten yards when something stirred in the 
underbrush. He stopped, startled. The next in- 
stant a fearful bellow filled his ears, and the 
wounded bull burst through a curtain of ever- 
greens. 


158 WILDERNESS HONEY 

Bob turned and ran as fast as he could, still 
clinging to the sack. Luckily the bull was some- 
what lame from his wound and not in his regular 
racing form. At is was, Bob was almost run 
down ; he saved himself only by leaping aside and 
changing his direction. All the time he kept on 
the lookout for a tree that he could climb, and 
he clung tightly to the sack. He was determined 
not to drop it except as a last resort, for the mouth 
was not tied, and the bees would escape at 
once. 

The hoofs of the bull clattered behind him. He 
dodged wildly again, swerved behind a tree, and 
caught sight of a dead hemlock trunk that was 
spiked with short branches, and leaned at a de- 
cided angle. 

It was almost as easy to climb as a ladder, and 
Bob scrambled up to safety, still carrying his 
swarm. 

The bull’s disappointed fury was now uncon- 
trollable. He roared frightfully; his black mane 
stood stiffly on end, and he gritted and gnashed 
his teeth. Probably by this time he had got 
Bob thoroughly associated with the pain that he 


FAILING HOPES 159 

was suffering, and it was too much for him to be 
twice checked in his revenge. 

He reared up with his fore feet against the 
trunk of the hemlock. Then he drew back a few 
yards and charged into it with such force that, to 
Bob’s horror, it gave slightly and leaned even far- 
ther over than before. Evidently the roots were 
rotten and held insecurely. It was no place of 
safety after all. 

Again the bull crashed into the trunk, and this 
time, with an ominous creaking, it went over more 
than a foot. 

This result seemed to encourage the bull 
greatly. He rammed his head against the trunk 
and pushed hard. Bob heard the rotten roots 
snapping. Pausing now and again to glance up 
at Bob with what seemed a gleam of savage tri- 
umph in his eye, the bull continued to butt and 
push. 

Bob clung in his tree panic-stricken, while it 
swayed over farther and farther. In a few sec- 
onds he would surely be hurled under the brute’s 
hoofs. Then it flashed upon him that he had one 
weapon left, and a terrible one. He disliked to 


i6o WILDERNESS HONEY 
use it, even to save his life, but another charge 
of the bull, and a heavy lurch of the almost up- 
rooted tree convinced him that he must not hesi- 
tate. 

He held the sack directly over the bulbs head, 
and shook out the swarm. At the same time he 
ducked quickly, and snatched his coat up to cover 
his own face. 

There was a hissing roar as though from a 
burst steam-pipe, and he felt a dozen burning 
stings on his hands. Then he heard a sudden, 
astonished snort from the bull and a sound of 
furious trampling. 

He ventured to peep through an opening in 
his coat. The air round him was full of bees, and 
the bulbs face and head seemed covered with a 
surging brown mass. Thousands of bees were 
clinging and stinging pitilessly, while the animal 
rushed about, fiercely shaking its head and bellow- 
ing with pain and fury. 

Blindly it started to bolt, and collided heavily 
with a tree. It made a fresh start and splashed 
into the brook. From the sounds it seemed to 
be rolling in the water. Probably it got rid of 


FAILING HOPES 


i6i 


some of its tormentors in this way, but certainly 
not of all. It dashed out of the creek, bolted past 
Bob's tree, knots of maddened bees still clinging 
to its hide, and crashed through the underbrush, 
straight away into the woods. There was no 
doubt that it was gone this time, for Bob could 
hear its smashing rush fully half a mile away. 

Bob was stung a good deal himself, but this 
seemed a very light matter. He slipped to the 
ground and lost no time in finding a safer place, 
for the air was still full of savagely-excited bees. 
Here he remained for half an hour, picking the 
stings out of his skin, and waiting till he con- 
sidered it safe to go home. 

He might as well recover the sack, he thought, 
before he left, and he went to get it, regretting bit- 
terly the loss of the swarm. No doubt it had 
saved his life; it could not be helped; but still it 
was a shame to lose Alice's three-dollar bee. 

But as he approached his former perch he was 
surprised to find that the bees had collected again. 
Not all of them, indeed; instead of the big swarm, 
there was now only about a quart of bees in a 
little bunch on a cedar twig. But they would 


i 62 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


hardly have gathered there if the queen had not 
been with them, and Bob bent over the cluster 
and looked at it closely. 

They had got over their stinging fury now. 
He was able to scrutinize them carefully, and in a 
few seconds he made out the slender, graceful 
body of the yellow, Italian queen, as she crawled 
about among her bees. Full of delight, he slipped 
the sack over it, shook the bees off, and started 
hastily for home. More than half were lost, to 
be sure, but he would have sacrificed all the rest of 
the swarm to have saved the queen. 

He reached the river without seeing anything 
more of the bull, ferried himself across, and went 
up to the apiary, where Carl and Alice were still 
working hard. 

'T Ve got ’em !” he cried triumphantly as he ap- 
peared. 

''Got them!” his brother exclaimed. "Looks 
as if they ’d got you !” 

Bob’s face was indeed a shocking sight. A 
bee-keeper usually becomes hardened to stings, so 
that they do not cause swellings ; but Bob had not 
yet become sufficiently inoculated. There were 


FAILING HOPES 


163 

big lumps on his forehead, one eye was nearly 
closed, his chin was lopsided, and both his hands 
were somewhat puffed. But he was highly elated 
at having recovered the swarm with the valuable 
queen, which they at once carefully restored to a 
hive. 

‘There, old lady !” said Carl, as he saw the yel- 
low queen creep into the hive with her bees, 
“you Ve had enough wild life now, and you ’d bet- 
ter settle down to business.’' 

Bob gave them a brief account of what had hap- 
pened, while he helped them sort out the swarms, 
but in the course of another hour his eye closed so 
badly that he was obliged to retire to the cabin. 
Several more swarms had come out while he had 
been gone, but all of them had been recovered, and 
by that night they had twenty-eight new colonies 
more than they had bought. 

The apiary was certainly far too crowded, and 
doubtless there would be still more swarming be- 
fore the season was over. Some of them ought 
to be moved to another spot, and the sooner this 
could be done the better. 

The next day was hot and dry. No honey ap- 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


164 

peared to be coming in, and no swarms went out, 
and early the following morning Carl paddled the 
boat down to Morton. 

He had no difficulty in securing Mr. Farr’s 
written consent to moving part of the bees to the 
new location by the lake. He ordered a two- 
horse team and hayrack to come out to the apiary 
the next day, and came home with a roll of wire 
gauze and several papers of tacks. 

It took a day to clear away the bushes and 
brush from the old road, but it was ready when 
the wagon arrived from Morton, and they moved 
fifty colonies the next night, in two loads. The 
next morning they moved another load by day- 
light. It was hard, tedious work to load and un- 
load the heavy hives, and the wagon had to move 
slowly all the way. It was dangerous work, too ; 
though the entrances of the hives were closed with 
wire gauze, an aperture might develop through 
which the bees could rush out, and the result 
would probably be stung horses, a runaway, and a 
line of smashed hives scattered along the road. 
One of the boys walked with a lighted smoker 
beside the load all the way, on the watch for possi- 


FAILING HOPES 165 

ble trouble, and they all breathed much more 
freely when the hives were off the wagon. 

They set them on large stones a few rods back 
from the water. Later they could make regular 
stands for them, and before another season, of 
course, they would have to build a small house for 
extracting and storing the apparatus. 

For the present they contented themselves with 
a tiny hut no bigger than a piano-case, built of 
rough logs, in which to store tools and a few 
frames, extra hives, and odds and ends. Most of 
the colonies in the new yard were old ones that 
had swarmed and were weak in bees. They 
would gather no more surplus honey and would 
need little attention this year, but would build up 
strong for the next season. 

The day of the swarming riot was the last really 
good day of the raspberry bloom. The effect of 
the shower had been transient. The weather 
turned hot and dry. The honey dried up in the 
flowers, and the discouraged bees worked only for 
an hour or two early every morning. 

'Tf it would only rain — really rain hard!’' 
groaned Alice. 


i66 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


‘‘Unless it does, the honey-flow is certainly at 
an end,’’ said Carl, anxiously. “The berry bloom 
won’t last long in this drought and I ’m certain 
there ’s nothing like a thousand dollars’ worth of 
honey in the supers now.” 

“No — or five hundred,” added Bob. 

In fact, the earliest raspberry blossoms were 
now replaced by green fruit. If rain should fall 
in time, the later bloom might last for a week 
more, and there was the basswood flowering still 
to come. But the weather remained hot and dry, 
and there was no dew at night. Alice’s garden 
withered, though she watered it every evening. 
Twice clouds rolled up from the south, and they 
heard thunder. It must have rained within ten 
miles, but not a drop fell at the apiary. 

“Even half an hour’s shower would mean a 
couple of days’ honey-flow,” said Bob. 

But it did not come. Now and again a little 
moisture in the air set the bees working for an 
hour or two, but most of the time they were idle. 
As usual in a honey dearth they became bad-tem- 
pered. Their owners could no longer stroll about 
among the hives with impunity. The bees came 


FAILING HOPES 


167 

into the cabin, attracted by one of the pails of 
candied honey, and would have carried every mor- 
sel of it away if they had been permitted. Robber 
bees were prowling about every hive, looking for 
a chance to steal a little sweet from some care- 
less colony, but every entrance was alive with 
alert guards, and no bee was allowed to pass in 
without being examined and smelt all over. The 
robbers did get a foothold in one weak colony, 
however, and before the apiarists saw it, it was 
besieged by a cloud of bees. They carried it by 
assault, too, after half an hour’s fighting, killed 
the defenders, tore down most of the combs, and 
carried every drop of the honey away to their own 
hive. 

Then they turned their attention to the hive 
standing next in the row, but this was a powerful 
colony, and the raiders got more than they bar- 
gained for. In a moment the entrance was cov- 
ered with knots of furiously-fighting bees. 
Every robber was pounced upon the moment it 
alighted. The attack was beaten off, and for a 
time quiet reigned in the yard. 

Day by day the raspberry bloom vanished, and 


i68 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


no fresh buds were opening now. The time came 
at last when it was entirely gone, and all the thick- 
ets were covered with fruit. The basswood trees 
were full of buds — but would they yield nec- 
tar? 

It was the middle of July. In two weeks they 
must pay five hundred dollars, with interest, and 
they did not have the money. Unless they could 
make it, the bees would be taken from them. 

'Tf the basswood only yields as it should we ’ll 
manage it, after all,” said Bob, trying to be op- 
timistic. 

Alas ! the basswood flowered in the midst of a 
hot wave, when the whole land lay baked and 
panting. The bloom lasted only a day or two, 
dried up, and withered. Scarcely a bee had 
touched the blossoms. 

The Harmans felt unspeakably gloomy and dis- 
couraged. The failure of their hopes, after so 
much anticipation, labor, and experience, was 
hard to bear. 

''We may as well look the thing square in the 
face, Allie,” said Carl one morning, when he was 
alone with his sister in the cabin. "The season ’s 


FAILING HOPES 169 

over, and it 's a failure. I don’t know how we ’ll 
save the bees.” 

‘^Surely we ’ll have money enough to pay Mr. 
Farr. We must save the bees if we starve our- 
selves, for they mean everything to us. How 
much money have we left ?” 

"'About two hundred dollars. It has just 
melted away, with all the expenses of fresh sup- 
plies and sugar and then the cost of establishing 
the new yard, besides our own living.” 

"Well, surely we can get three hundred dollars’ 
worth of honey, to make up enough for our pay- 
ment. We can manage to live some way and rub 
along till another season comes.” 

"Well, that ’s what I wanted to talk about,” 
went on Carl, earnestly. "You see, Bob’s uni- 
versity work must n’t be interrupted on any ac- 
count. He ’ll want to drop it, I know, to save the 
money, but we must n’t let him. We ’ve got to 
find the money somehow. Now, I ’ve been think- 
ing that you might go back to Harman’s Corners, 
where you could live in our old house for little 
or nothing, and I might get some kind of a job 
in Toronto.” 


170 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


‘‘You ’re right,” Alice agreed. “Bob must 
keep up his work. But I would n’t stay at home 
all alone. I ’d rather get a job in Toronto, too.” 

Then began a long discussion of plans, but they 
revealed nothing of all this to Bob. That very 
evening, however. Bob proposed that his sister 
take a walk with him. 

“This investment hasn’t panned out, Alice,” 
he said, when they were well away from the cabin. 
“We ’re not going to make a cent profit this year. 
I blame myself for it, for I got you both into it.” 

“Nonsense, Bob!” returned Alice. “We were 
just as eager as you were. We all rushed into it, 
and we all knew that it was a gamble on the 
weather.” 

“Well, anyhow, I ’m not going back to college 
next term. Carl will want me to, I know, but 
you must back me up. I could n’t use any money 
that way. We’ll be hard up at the best, and I 
won’t have you two rob yourselves for my sup- 
port.” 

“Oh, Bob ! You must go back I” 

“Well, I won’t. What ’s a year lost, anyhow. 
But I ’m uncertain what to do. I could come up 


FAILING HOPES 171 

here and trap all winter. I ’m sure I could make 
several hundred dollars, all clear profit ; but trap- 
ping is a sort of gamble, too. Or I could get a 
job any time with the Toronto Electric Company 
at about fifteen a week. Trapping would be 
more fun, but the other would be surer, and I ’d 
get a lot of practical experience. What do you 
think?’’ 

‘T don’t know !” said Alice, half laughing and 
half crying. ‘'Oh, I don’t know. Bob. I think — 
I think we ’d better harvest our honey first and see 
how it turns out.” 

And the next day they began to harvest the 
crop. 


CHAPTER VI 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 

I T was the comb honey in the one-pound sec- 
tions on which they were depending for an 
early sale at a fancy price, and naturally they 
wished to take this off first. The only place to 
pile and sort it was in the cabin, and they pro- 
ceeded to turn the boys' bedroom into a store- 
house. There was no furniture to take out ; they 
merely removed the bedding, and laid boards over 
the bunk to make a platform. Carl nailed wire 
gauze over the window, and Bob constructed a 
rough screen for the outer door. With the bees 
in that fierce robbing humor the place must, above 
all things, be kept bee-tight. 

It was a ticklish task to take off the supers, for 
the bees were intensely irritable, and a hive was 
no more than opened when a host of robbers col- 
lected, eager to pilfer a mouthful. The boys had 
to be quick in their movements. Bob opened the 

172 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 173 

hive, and the moment the lid was up Carl drove 
great blasts of smoke into the super, at the same 
time keeping enough smoke in the surrounding air 
to repel the thieves. Bob then seized the super, 
knocked it on the ground to jar out the few bees 
left in it, and hurried with it to the cabin. 

In the storeroom Alice was waiting to sort and 
grade the honey. The delicate sections were 
glued fast in the frames that held them, and had 
to be pried carefully out. The very finest sec- 
tions, sealed white and smooth all over, were 
classed as 'Taney’’; those of slightly rougher ap- 
pearance ranked as "No. i.” A certain number 
of the rest might be saleable at a low price; the 
honey was just as good as the "Fancy,” but their 
appearance was against them. But the larger 
part was worth nothing, except for the honey that 
could be obtained by the extractor. 

From the first it became apparent that there 
was going to be more honey than they had ex- 
pected, and their hopes began to go nervously up- 
ward. When the opening of a hive showed a 
good super, with all its combs smooth and white, 
the boys chuckled, and Bob exulted in its weight 


174 WILDERNESS HONEY 
as he lugged it into the house. Some colonies had 
as many as three supers like this, but many had 
only one or two, and some, where the colony had 
swarmed, only a worthless and unfinished set of 
combs. 

Beside these, there were the extracting supers, 
containing a good deal of honey, but they did not 
intend to extract at once. The comb honey came 
first. 

The piles of supers accumulated in the little 
room faster than Alice could remove the sections. 
With rising hope, the boys worked feverishly, and 
shortly after noon they carried in the last super. 
Then they set to work to assist Alice at the sort- 
ing and grading. 

Every section had to be looked at and estimated, 
the propolis and wax scraped from the wood, and 
then placed carefully in the shipping-cases. The 
emptied supers were put outdoors ; the supers with 
unfinished sections were set by themselves. All 
three worked hard that afternoon, and much of 
the next day, but it was not till nearly supper-time 
that they emptied the last super, and filled the last 
shipping case. 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 175 

There were 3840 sections. Of these, 1200 
ranked as ‘Taney,’’ and about 600 as “No. i.” 
Nearly 2000 sections were unsaleable. 

“These we can eat ourselves,” remarked Alice. 

“We ought to get $2.50 a dozen for the best, and 
$2 for the ‘No. i’,” Bob estimated. “That comes 
to—” 

‘'$350/’ said Carl, who was a lightning calcu- 
lator. “Why, that ’s not so bad ! Then all those 
unsaleable sections must have at least a thousand 
pounds of honey in them that we can extract. 
Besides, there must be three or four hundred dol- 
lars’ worth of extracted honey on the hives which 
we ’ll be able to sell later.” 

“Hurrah !” shouted Bob. “We ’ll pull through, 
after all.” 

“Yes, and with something to the good!” cried 
Alice. 

In their relief and joy they joined hands and 
performed a wild dance around the shipping cases. 
It did not last long, though, for they were tired 
and stiff with bending over the supers ; they were 
gummy with propolis and wax, and sticky with 
honey, and on the window was a cluster of bees 


176 WILDERNESS HONEY 
the size of a small swarm, which had been car- 
ried in with the honey. After dark Carl brushed 
them off into a bucket, carried them out, and 
poured them down in front of a weak hive. They 
crawled gladly in, and as they all had their sacs 
full of honey, they were admitted. A honey- 
laden bee is always welcome to any hive. 

The comb honey had to be sold at once, for the 
time was growing short. Bob proposed that he 
should go over to Morton and make the sale in 
Toronto by telegraph, or by long-distance tele- 
phone if he could get connections. It was a good 
plan, but Carl was anxious to be on hand to hear 
how the negotiations went; Alice was no less 
eager, and was, moreover, unwilling to be left 
alone at the cabin, so it ended in preparations for 
all of them to go to Morton and make the deal 
together. 

‘^Above all things, we must be careful to leave 
the cabin bee-tight,’^ Alice warned them. ^^Just 
fancy the bees finding a way in. They M carry 
all that honey back to the hives before we got 
home.’’ 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 


177 

So they plugged every chink in the logs most 
carefully with wet clay and moss, looked to the 
wire screens, and even blocked up the chimney. 
The cabin door they fastened with a big padlock 
and chain, and Alice packed up half a dozen of 
the best sections for a gift to Mr. Farr. 

“No use trying to sweeten him,’' Bob warned 
her. “He '11 take it, but he '11 be as hard as nails 
with us all the same. He keeps business and 
friendship separate, you know.” 

“Anyway I 'm going to take him the honey. I 
rather like him, you know,” Alice persisted. 

They went down in the boat, a slow and rather 
lazy drift with the current in the warm morning 
sunshine. About noon they reached Morton, and 
found that they could get telegraph connections 
at the railway station, and long-distance tele- 
phone at the hotel. 

As a first step. Bob telegraphed to the head- 
quarters of the Provincial Bee-keepers’ Associa- 
tion to learn what the season had been throughout 
the country, and how prices were ranging. It 
was two o’clock in the afternoon before the reply 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


178 

came ; the waiting had been something of a strain, 
and Bob looked nervous when he ripped open the 
yellow envelope, but then his face brightened. 

'‘Splendid ! Listen to this he cried. 

" 'Honey crop reported about one third normal 
throughout Ontario. Severe drought. Mem- 
bers advised to hold for good prices. Market 
firm.’ ” 

"The drought must have been worse with them 
than it was with us,” said Carl. "Well, prices 
are likely to go ’way up, and we ought to have a 
chance to make some money.” 

"It looks so,” replied Bob, "and now I want you 
to let me do the negotiating. I ’m an ignoramus 
at handling bees, but I think I can sell honey bet- 
ter than either of you.” 

"Who ’ll you sell it to?” asked Alice. 

"I ’m going to try Mr. Brown, of Brown & Son, 
you know, the wholesale grocery people. We 
used to buy a lot of stock from him for the store. 
I ’ve often bought from him by long-distance, and 
I ’ll see if I can’t sell to him the same way. Any- 
how, I think he ’ll give us a square deal.” 

The telephone was not in a booth, but merely 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 179 

attached to the wall of the hotel office. However, 
there was no one in sight or hearing at the time, 
and they might as well have been in a private 
room. Bob called the long-distance connection, 
and after about fifteen minutes' waiting got a re- 
ply from the Toronto grocery dealers. Alice and 
Carl stood beside him, and listened breathlessly to 
the conversation. 

'Ts that Mr. Brown?" cried Bob. ‘This is 
Bob Harman — of Harman's Corners, you know. 
No, I 'm not there just now. I 'm running a bee- 
ranch up north. A bee-ranch. Honey-bees, you 
know. Yes. Yes, we have a lot of splendid 
comb-honey. Are you in the market ?" 

For a moment he listened attentively. 

“We have about a hundred dozen ‘Fancy' and 
about fifty dozen ‘No. i,"' he continued. “We 
ask $3 and $2.50 a dozen for the two grades, 
freight paid to Toronto." 

“What an awful price! We'll never get it," 
whispered Alice, startled. 

“Don't speak. You 'll shake his nerve," Carl 
muttered. 

“No," Bob was saying into the transmitter. 


i8o WILDERNESS HONEY 

''We would n't care to take much less. There 's 
been a bad crop everywhere, and honey is scarce 
this year. Oh, we could n’t think of taking that. 
What ’s that ? All right. In an hour, then. 
Good-by.” He turned away from the telephone. 

"They actually had the nerve to offer $2.25 for 
the 'Fancy,’ and $2 for the other,” he said. 
"They said they had bought a lot of 'Fancy’ at $2, 
but I think that was pure bluff. And I thought 
they were sure to give us a square deal! Well, 
I ’m to ring them up again in an hour, and if they 
won’t come up to a decent figure, there are other 
dealers in Toronto.” 

It seemed a long time to wait. Alice carried 
her gift of honey to Mr. Farr, and came back re- 
porting that he had seemed much pleased. But 
he had shaken his head grimly at her account of 
the poor season. 

"The old skinflint need n’t worry,” said Carl, 
angrily. "He ’ll get his money all right.” 

"Yes, but I ’m not going to sacrifice that 
honey,” said Bob with decision. "It ’s cost us too 
much — with cats and moose and stings and bears 
and wendigos. It ought to be worth a dollar a 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 


i8i 


pound. If we can’t do well in Toronto, we ’ll ring 
up Montreal. Honey prices are often better 
there.” 

They did not wait much beyond the hour in 
calling Mr, Brown again, and this time Bob got 
him with very little delay. 

‘‘Yes,” he said in reply to some question, “I ’ve 
thought it over, and we can’t possibly accept what 
you offer. We ’ll shade the price to $2.80 for the 
best grade, but we think we should have at least 
$2.50 for the other. It ’s really beautiful honey.” 

He listened a moment and frowned. “Hold 
the line a moment,” he said at last. “I must con- 
sult my brother.” 

He turned to Carl and Alice, holding his hand 
over the transmitter, so that their conversation 
should not leak through to Toronto. 

“He says his best figure is $2.60 and $2.30, cash 
down,” he said in a low tone. “What shall we 
do?” 

“Take it, by all means. That is n’t so bad,”' 
said Carl, anxiously. 

“Yes, take it — take it!” Alice begged. “We 
must n’t lose the sale.” 


i82 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


Bob looked at them thoughtfully for a moment, 
and then an expression of determination crossed 
his face. He turned back to the telephone. 

“Sorry — can't do it!" he said, firmly. “We 
will take $2.70 and $2.40, but that 's positively our 
last word. We 're thinking of shipping to Mont- 
real." 

Alice turned pale, and clutched Bob's arm in 
remonstrance, but he paid no attention to her. 

“No," he said into the telephone, “I 'm not try- 
ing to drive any hard bargain, Mr. Brown. But 
there 's scarcely any comb-honey this year, and 
prices are going up. Shall we ship? All right. 
That will be satisfactory. We can ship to-mor- 
row or the day after. Good-by 1 " 

He hung up the telephone and made a wild leap 
into the air. 

“Victory!" he exclaimed. “We get $2.70 and 
$2.40, cash on delivery. About twenty cents a 
dozen more than we 'd counted on. It was the 
mention of Montreal that fetched them, for they 
were keen to get the honey. We 're saved !" 

“Frenzied finance!" said Carl, who had been 
jotting down some figures on a scrap of paper. 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 183 
^'But it comes to $390, and with the $200 we Ve 
got we ’ll be able to make our payment all right. 
Let ’s get that honey shipped at once.” 

First, however, they had to arrange for a team- 
ster to go out to the apiary for the honey; then 
they had to make some purchases in the village, 
and when they had finished their errands, it was 
too late for the long pull up the river that after- 
noon. So they all stayed at the hotel and started 
up-stream at eight o’clock the next morning. 

It was nearly noon when they arrived at the 
apiary landing, and they were tired, but light- 
hearted with success. They went up toward the 
cabin with their arms full of packages, and sud- 
denly Alice, who was in front, uttered a sharp cry. 

A cloud of robber bees hung roaring about the 
cabin. The door, which they had left locked, 
stood half open. They dropped their parcels and 
rushed up. The main room was swarming with 
bees, but fortunately the screen door into the 
honey room was shut, and they had not been able 
to get in, though they were trying hard. 

But a glance through the wire showed that the 
honey had been pillaged. The piles of supers 


i84 wilderness HONEY 

were overturned; so were the stacks of full ship- 
ping cases, and half of them seemed to be gone. 

Alice gave one glance through the door at the 
wreck and then dropped on a bench and hid her 
face in her hands. Bob rushed into the store- 
room, with Carl at his heels. 

A great part of the best honey was gone — 
nearly all the ‘'No. i'' grade and some of the 
“Fancy/' They could not tell accurately at the 
moment how much. More than a thousand 
pounds seemed to be missing, but the thief had ab- 
stained from taking any of the unsaleable sec- 
tions. 

“It can't have been gone long!" said Carl, ex- 
citedly. “Let 's see if there are any tracks." 

As they hastened out they noticed that the 
heavy staple that held the padlock had been pried 
off. The ground near the door was too hard to 
show tracks, but a little way from the river they 
found footprints heading toward the cabin, and 
in the gravel along the shore they found the mark 
where a boat had been drawn up. 

“Gone by water I" said Bob grimly. “Do you 
suppose it was that half-breed squatter ?" 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 185 

“There 's no one else living along the river 
within ten miles. He must have seen us all going 
down the river yesterday, and knew that he had 
a clear field. What fools we were to leave all 
that honey. We ’re done for now !” 

“Not much!” returned Bob. “If that fellow 
has the honey, we ’ll get it back. Here, come 
along I” 

He led the way rapidly back to the cabin, took 
down his rifle, and began to fill the magazine with 
cartridges. Carl picked up his shotgun. 

“Bob I What are you going to do ?” exclaimed 
Alice. 

“Get that honey back,” replied her brother 
shortly. “Going down the river.” 

“Well, if you ’re going, I ’ll go too and paddle 
the boat.” 

“No, you stay here, Allie. There won’t be 
any shooting, but this is no girl’s business. Stay 
here and get the bees out of here and things 
straightened up. We won’t be long — I hope!” 

Alice looked entreating and frightened, but 
Bob was immovable. Carrying their guns, the 
two boys went back to the boat and in another 


i86 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


minute were shooting down the stream as fast as 
the oars and current could take them. As they 
went they decided upon a plan of action. They 
did not want any collision with the half-breed. 
If it came to weapons, it would mean somebody 
killed or wounded, and that would be worse than 
losing the whole crop of honey. They only 
wanted to make sure that he had really stolen the 
honey, and where he had hidden it. Afterwards 
they would see about recovering it. 

They landed near the great slough, left the 
boat, and went cautiously through the woods to 
the edge of the clearing. No one was in sight. 
No dog barked this time, and the cabin door was 
shut. 

‘Terhaps they ’ve gone away with the haul,’’ 
muttered Bob. 'The only way is to go up and 
find out.” 

So they marched boldly across the stumpy field 
to the cabin, and knocked. 

''Entrezr cried a voice from within, and Bob 
pushed open the door. 

There was a startled exclamation from within. 
Larue rose from a seat where he was doing some- 



“No, you stay here, Allie. There won’t be any shooting, but this is 
no girl’s business” 


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ROBBING THE ROBBER 189 

thing with a large piece of buckskin, and he 
looked black as he saw the two boys standing 
armed in the doorway. His wife, a tall, rather 
handsome and shabbily-dressed woman, stopped 
short in the middle of the floor, looking fright- 
ened. Two pretty, gipsy-like children slunk into 
the background. 

''Bon jour! bon jourT said both Bob and Carl 
politely. 

"Bon jour/' responded the squatter, and his 
face softened a little. ‘‘What do you want? You 
speak French?” 

“Only a little — not enough to talk,” replied 
Bob. “Mr. Larue, our house was broken into 
while we were away, and about a thousand pounds 
of honey stolen — over $200 worth. We came to 
see if you knew anything about it.” 

“Me? How should I know anything about 
zat?” returned Larue. 

It was hard to put the accusation direct, and 
Bob hesitated a little. 

“The honey was taken away by boat. You 
have a boat, and you 're the only person that lives 
down this way, so — " 


190 WILDERNESS HONEY 

‘'You say I steal your honey?’’ cried the squat- 
ter angrily. "I tell you I know nottings about it. 
Look ! Is the honey here ?” 

Carl and Bob both looked, and Bob sniffed as 
well, and sniffed again with suspicion. The 
cabin was all one large room, and a thousand 
pounds of honey certainly could not have been 
concealed in it. It contained only the simplest 
furniture, a dirty cooking stove, a table, two 
rough beds, on which were spread the two fine 
bearskins that Alice had seen, and a small cup- 
board. But Bob suddenly darted forward and 
picked up a small fragment of honeycomb from 
the floor under the table. 

"Where did this come from?” he cried. 

"Bee-tree,” returned the half-breed, cunningly. 

"I don’t believe it !” exclaimed Carl, examining 
the bit of wax. "This comb was built on foun- 
dation. It came from our bee-yard.” 

"Give us back our honey, and we ’ll say noth- 
ing more about it,” urged Bob. "You don’t need 
to steal honey. We ’ll give you all you can eat.” 

^^VoilaT cried Larue. "I know nottings about 
your honey. It is that you want to make trouble. 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 


191 

You come here to see me; bien, you are welcome. 
You come here to insult me; you go outside 
quick.” 

‘When we come back, we ’ll bring a consta- 
ble !” cried Carl. 

The woman said a sentence to her husband in 
rapid French, which the boys failed to catch. 

“Let your constable come,” continued the 
squatter. “He find nottings. But as for you, 
you git out and stay out. I know nottings about 
your honey. Va-t-en! Git!” 

“Come along! No use talking any more!” 
muttered Bob, and the boys departed, feeling 
rather beaten and angry. They crossed the 
clearing and paused to look back from the cover 
of the woods. Larue was standing in his door- 
way, gazing after them. 

“All the same, I know the honey is somewhere 
about this place,” Bob broke out. “Why, I could 
smell it. I could n’t be mistaken. And that piece 
of comb — ” 

“It was certainly a piece of a section,” Carl 
agreed. “I ’m afraid, though, that I made a bad 
break in threatening him with a constable. He ’ll 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


192 

be sure to move the plunder right away to some 
place where nobody could ever find it/’ 

‘'He certainly has n’t got it in his cabin. 
Maybe it ’s stored in the barn.” 

“Likely enough. Or somewhere near here in 
the woods. How we ’ll ever locate it is more 
than I can imagine.” 

“If it ’s in any exposed place some bees will be 
likely to find it and rob it out for him. Wish they 
would !” said Bob. 

Carl looked quickly at his brother and medi- 
tated in silence for a moment. 

“Look here!” he exclaimed at last. “Why 
can’t we send bees to scout for that honey. They 
might even carry it back, and no power on earth 
could stop them if they got going. Of course 
they could n’t lug the sections home, but they ’d 
lick out all the honey and put it in their hives 
again, and we could extract it. That would be 
better than losing it all.” 

Bob looked dubious at first, and then he began 
to laugh. 

“Robbing the robber !” he exclaimed. “I don’t 
know but what it might work. Anyway, it ’s a 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 193 

brilliant idea and ought to be tried. None of 
those shipping cases had their tops closed, and the 
bees could get into them without any trouble. 
But how 'll we work it ? It 's three miles from 
here to the bee-yard.” 

‘^Yes, we 'd have to bring some hives down here 
within range,” replied Carl. ''We could float 
them down in the boat. Four or five would do to 
see if they found the honey, and then we could 
bring more.” 

They got into their boat and pulled up-stream 
again. From a distance they saw Alice waiting 
at the landing, peering eagerly down the river. 

"Thank goodness, you 're back!” she exclaimed 
fervently. "I 've been so worried. Did you 
have a fight? Did you find the honey?” 

"Neither honey nor fight,” returned Bob, as 
they went ashore. "But we think we know where 
the honey is, and we 're going to send some mes- 
sengers after it to-morrow.” 

"Messengers? What do you mean?” cried 
Alice, mystified. Carl chuckled and outlined the 
plan to her, much to her amusement, though she 
was doubtful of its success. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


194 

''Why, there ’s a thousand pounds of honey 
missing,’^ she said. "A colony can’t carry more 
than ten pounds of honey a day. What a lot of 
colonies it would take, or what a long time, to 
have them bring all that back, even if they find 
it!” 

However, the boys were determined to give the 
plan a trial, and as soon as it was dark they loaded 
half a dozen of their strongest colonies into the 
boat. Along with them they took supers of 
empty combs. 

It crowded the boat considerably and made an 
awkward cargo, but they got it safely down the 
river. Landing near Larue’s clearing, they put 
the hives ashore and then carried them, one by 
one, with much labor and stumbling, through the 
woods. Within two hundred yards of Larue’s 
barn, but well back among the trees they set the 
hives down behind a cedar thicket. Bob then 
laid a trail of honey from the hives almost to the 
barn, sprinkling a little on the ground and leaves 
every few feet. Before he had quite reached the 
barn, the hound began to bay noisily, and the boys 
scuttled off to the river and paddled homeward. 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 195 

About nine o’clock the next morning they made 
their way cautiously down to their ambushed 
‘^messengers” to see what was going on. They 
found things active. Bees were coming and go- 
ing rapidly, dropping heavily laden in front of the 
hives. Every colony was alert, excited and bad- 
tempered. The intelligent insects knew well that 
honey was coming from some unnatural source. 
Robbing was in the air ; they felt it, and every en- 
trance was massed with guards in readiness for 
a possible attack. 

“They Ve found it !” exclaimed Carl, gleefully. 

The boys sat down and watched. All the bees 
were certainly going straight toward Larue’s 
clearing, and they came heavily back, dropping 
by scores at the hives, almost too heavy to fly. In 
the course of an hour the activity had greatly 
increased. 

“Yes, they’ve located it, all right,” said Bob. 
“They ’re heading toward his barn, it seems to 
me. I wish I dared go and look, but we ’d better 
be careful not to show our noses. Larue is prob- 
ably on the watch.” 

They put on the supers of empty combs to give 


196 WILDERNESS HONEY 

storage room for the honey and went back to the 
cabin for dinner, laughing. But they were too 
much excited to stay long away from the am- 
bushed hives, and they returned to them toward 
the middle of the afternoon. Alice was intensely 
anxious to be allowed to go with them, but the 
situation was highly delicate, and they decided 
that it was hardly safe. 

When they came within a hundred yards of the 
hidden hives they heard the roar of the bees. 
Never before had they seen such a fury of work. 
A black belt, a river of bees, seemed to be flowing 
over the trees toward the clearing. The en- 
trances were almost choked as the insects poured 
out and in, and the ground in front was covered 
with crawling bees that had dropped exhausted. 

They were savagely cross, too, as bees always 
are when robbing is going on. There was fight- 
ing at the entrance of every hive, probably due 
to bees mistaking their doors in the new location. 
The whole front of the hive was brown with 
guards, and it was dangerous to go nearer than 
twenty feet. Bob had brought a veil with him, 
though, and he opened one of the supers. He 


ROBBING THE ROBBER 


197 

received several stings on the hands, but reported 
that the combs were nearly half full already, and 
not with nectar, but with thick, ripened honey. 

'‘No doubt at all that it ’s our honey coming 
back,'’ he said. 'T wonder what Mr. Larue 
thinks of all this. If we ’re careful, he ’ll never 
suspect that we had any hand in it. He ’ll just 
take it as a kind of judgment for his thieving. 
But what oceans of bees seem to be going over. 
You would n’t think that half a dozen hives could 
send out so many.” 

'T ’ve a notion that the bees from the home 
yard are coming here too,” said Carl. "Just look 
in the air.” 

In fact, a long air-line of bees could be dis- 
cerned going straight up the river above the trees. 
It was a long flight, of course, but bees have been 
known to go four or five miles when honey is 
scarce. Perhaps the home apiary might have 
found the stolen honey even if they had not moved 
any bees. 

During that afternoon the excitement rose to a 
perfect frenzy. A torrent of bees swept over- 
head, from the ambushed hives to the clearing 


198 WILDERNESS HONEY 
and up the river toward home. The boys began 
to grow uneasy; as Carl had said, no power on 
earth could stop things now, and it looked rather 
as if they had unlocked forces that were too much 
for them. Carl hastened home to look at 
conditions there, and came back breathless, re- 
porting the apiary in a turmoil. Bees were fly- 
ing, robbing, fighting and bringing in honey. 
Many of the colonies had not yet learned where 
the honey was coming from, and were flying 
around the cabin in clouds, or trying to pounce on 
some weaker colony. 

‘'But there must be over a million bees going 
to the Frenchman's place," he said. ‘T think we 
ought to try to find out what 's going on there. 
The whole family may be stung to death." 

It did look dangerous, but they were greatly 
afraid to be seen. Larue's indignation must be 
well up to shooting-point before this. But they 
crept cautiously toward the clearing. 

Before they reached the edge of the woods they 
could hear a roar like a distant cataract; and 
when they came into the open they were appalled 
at what they saw. 


CHAPTER VII 


REAPING THE HARVEST 

A ROARING black cloud that looked almost 
like the vortex of a tornado swirled over 
the log barn. There was a smaller cloud hover- 
ing about the house, and the whole clearing was 
alive with bees, coming and going, looking for 
something, all extremely irritable. 

Approaching the barn as closely as they dared, 
they saw that the whole building was like a vast 
beehive. The insects covered the logs ; they 
swarmed in and out of every one of the wide 
chinks between the timbers. Myriads were con- 
tinually emerging and flying off, and myriads 
more took their places. 

^'Gracious!'' exclaimed Carl, looking rather 
wildly at his brother. ‘T did n’t know we had so 
many bees. The honey’s here in the barn all 
right.” 

‘Tt won’t be here long, at this rate,” returned 

Bob. ‘‘But I wonder what ’s happened to Larue 
199 


200 WILDERNESS HONEY 

and his family and live stock. Perhaps they ’re 
all dead !” 

The boys really felt seriously uneasy at the 
overwhelming success of their scheme. Except 
for the bees, no living creature was in sight, but 
Carl presently spied a dead hen near the barn. 
Evidently she had been killed by the bees, and 
this increased their uneasiness. Bob made an 
attempt to reach the cabin, but a host of savage 
bees drove him back, despite his veil. The in- 
sects were fighting-mad. 

The boys crept around the edge of the clearing, 
keeping in the shelter of the woods, where the 
bees did not molest them. They had made about 
half the circuit when they caught sight of a heavy 
cloud of smoke rising a little way back among the 
thickets. 

‘'S-sh ! There they are !” whispered Bob. 

They lay low for a minute, then, hearing no 
sound, crept up close enough to gain a view of the 
camp. The squatter’s family were sitting deject- 
edly in the shelter of smoke from a heavy smudge. 
Larue himself reclined against a tree, but he was 
hardly recognizable. Both his eyes seemed to be 



He was plainly in no condition to show fight, and the boys advanced 
without hesitation 



REAPING THE HARVEST 203 
swollen shut. He had two big lumps on his fore- 
head, his lips were puffed, and one ear was twice 
its rightful size. It was clear that he was in no 
fighting condition, and the boys walked up with- 
out any hesitation. 

^'You seem to be having trouble,’’ said Bob in- 
nocently. 

The squatter tried to screw his eyes open far 
enough to get a glimpse of them. 

'^Nom d'un nomT he ejaculated, thickly 
through his swollen lips. ‘'Dose bees ! Dey 
come — dey swarm — !” and he trailed off into a 
mixture of French and English indistinguishably 
distorted in his puffy mouth. They could hardly 
make out a word. 

“What’s been happening, Mrs. Larue?” said 
Carl, turning to the woman. She also bore 
marks of stings, and so did the two children. 

“Your bees!” she cried. “Dey come in by 
t’ousands — millions! We stay in de house — no! 
Pas possible! Dey kill my two best poulets. 
Kill us too, if we not get out !” 

“What do you suppose they could have been 
after?” asked Bob. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


204 

The woman cast a quick glance at her husband, 
and said she did n’t know, but in her queer dialect 
she gave an excited account of what had hap- 
pened — from her point of view. 

That forenoon they had suddenly been invaded 
by a whirlwind of bees. The family had tried 
at first to shut themselves up in the house, but 
the bees forced an entrance through hundreds 
of crevices, and they had had to take to the 
woods. Larue had been terribly stung while try- 
ing to get a cow out of the barn, and two hens 
had been killed by the bees. Afraid to leave 
cover, the family had been sitting all day under 
the smudge-smoke, without food, not daring to 
go to the house to find any. She knew, of course, 
that these were the Harman bees, but the boys 
were relieved to find that she seemed to have 
no sort of suspicion that the raid had been 
planned. 

‘We must get this thing stopped,’’ whispered 
Carl, drawing his brother aside. “The bees ’ll 
kill everything on the place.” 

“Yes, and after dark we can carry away the 
rest of the honey ourselves,” replied Bob. 


REAPING THE HARVEST 205 

''These people won't try to stop us. In fact, now 
will be a good time to try to make up a peace 
with them." 

"You 'll be all right by to-morrow, Mr. Larue," 
said Carl, reassuringly. "Perhaps you know 
better than we do what attracted the bees down 
here, but we 'll try to fix it so they won't bother 
you any more." 

"I move away from zis place!" cried the squat- 
ter, energetically. "Ze bee — he make my life 
one misery 1" 

"Well, I 'm sorry it happened," returned Bob. 
"Here 's a dollar to pay for your two hens, and 
we 'll send you some honey — for the children." 

The woman took the dollar bill, muttered a 
word of thanks, but did not seem much propiti- 
ated. As for stopping the raid, the boys could do 
nothing till the bees stopped of themselves for 
the night. It was really dangerous to venture 
out of the shelter of the woods. Even sunset 
brought little cessation of the uproar, and it was 
not till it was quite dark that the bees gradually 
ceased to hover about the barn and cabin. 

Bob and Carl then accompanied the Larues to 


2o6 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


their house, which was strewn with dead and 
half-dead bees. On the table were several un- 
mistakable pieces of section honey, which the boys 
wisely pretended not to see. No doubt Larue 
had brought them in for breakfast, but the bees 
had taken all the honey out of the combs. After 
finishing the honey, they had licked up every- 
thing sweet in the house, including two quarts 
of maple syrup and a jar of raspberry jam. 

The barefooted children were at once stung by 
treading on the stupefied bees that crawled over 
the floor. Larue flung himself down on the bed 
and started up again instantly, with a loud ejac- 
ulation. There were bees in the bed, too. The 
woman took a broom and began to sweep the in- 
sects out, but the boys judged it more politic not 
to stay. 

''Can you lend us a lantern?” inquired Bob. 
"We want to look into the barn. There ’s some 
honey of ours there that we want to take 
away. When it’s gone, the bees will leave you 
alone.” 

''Oui, I get you ze lantern,” said the woman. 
"Look in ze barn. Look anywhere. But I see 


REAPING THE HARVEST 


207 

no honey. I know nottings about it. I get you 
anything, only you take dose bees away.’’ 

Though the bees had ceased flying, there were 
many of them still crawling about the log barn, 
and in the lantern-light they perceived a big pile 
of something lightly covered with hay. 

‘There it is!” exclaimed Carl, with satisfac- 
tion. 

It was indeed the stolen shipping cases and 
supers, and the hay covering had not prevented 
the bees from getting at them. At a glance the 
honey seemed to be all there. At the worst, not 
many of the sections were missing, though the 
honey was presumably all cleaned out of them. 
There were a good many bees still in the boxes, 
and the floor was covered with dead insects. 
Evidently they had fought ferociously over the 
plunder. 

“Quite a load of stuff to take home in the boat,” 
remarked Carl, as they surveyed the rescued 
honey. 

“Yes, but if all the honey is out of it, it won’t 
be heavy, I fancy,” said Bob. “I saw an old 
wheelbarrow around here, and we ’ll use it to take 


2o8 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


the stuff to the boat. We absolutely must get it 
all home to-night, before these people recover 
from their shock.’’ 

The top cases of honey were indeed light, and 
seemed to contain nothing but empty combs — 
hardly that, in fact, for the wax sifted out in fine 
powder, for it had been torn to pieces by the fren- 
zied bees. But as they went deeper the boxes 
grew heavier; some of them seemed almost full 
weight, though no doubt they were all damaged 
enough to be unsaleable. 

It took three boat-loads to get the honey back 
home, and it was hard and heavy work pulling it 
up against the current. Alice was jubilant, and 
when they came up with the second load she had 
a supper of bacon, trout, cold partridge, and hot 
coffee ready for them. They needed it ; food had 
never tasted so good; and after finishing every- 
thing in sight, they went back for the last load. 

‘We ought to bring those six hives of bees 
home, too,” said Carl, uneasily. 

‘T suppose we should, but who cares?” replied 
Bob. ‘T ’m dead tired, and I would n’t row up 
that river again for a whole apiary. Larue 


REAPING THE HARVEST 


209 


does n’t know where they are. We ’ll bring them 
up at sunrise in the morning. I ’m going to bed.” 

But it was then considerably after midnight. 
The boys overslept, and did not waken till eight 
o’clock. The bees at home were flying already, 
showing signs of much excitement, and could be 
seen going down the river as on the day before. 
They were still looking for stolen honey. 

‘Won’t they hang around and bother the 
Frenchman again to-day?” Bob asked. 

‘T ’m afraid so,” said Carl. “But it can’t be 
helped, and they ’ll soon find that there ’s noth- 
ing more to be had, and go about their business. 
It ’ll be better when we get those six hives home.” 

It was after nine o’clock when they reached the 
ambushed hives, and at the first glance Carl ut- 
tered a loud cry of dismay. 

“Why, they ’re all shot to pieces !” 

They both ran up. One hive was overturned, 
with a great, splintered hole blown through its 
side ; a second was nearly as bad, and all the re- 
maining four had been more or less perforated 
with buckshot. Honey had run out on the 
ground, and the bees were crawling about stu- 


210 WILDERNESS HONEY 

pidly, seeming too much disconcerted to gather it 
up. 

''Looks as if Larue had got his eyes open 
again,” said Carl, as they surveyed the 'wreck. 

"Yes, and he ’s on the warpath !” Bob lamented. 
"Just when I had planned to make peace with 
him ! I hoped he ’d never find out that we had 
engineered this riot, and we Ve paid him for his 
hens, and I was going to send him some honey to 
sweeten him up. And now it ’s all off.” 

"Well, I don’t believe this is a particularly safe 
spot for us if he ’s out with his gun,” said Carl. 
"Let ’s get these hives moved away.” 

First Bob peeped through the thickets into the 
clearing. A good many bees still hung about the 
barn and cabin, and no doubt they were fiercely 
cross at finding no honey where they had expected 
it. There was no sign of the French family ; very 
likely they were under their smudge again. 

"I can’t say I blame Larue for being mad,” said 
Bob, "after being driven out of his house for two 
days running. I suppose he expected to find all 
quiet this morning, and it’s almost as bad as 


REAPING THE HARVEST 211 

ever. Then he found these hives and he natu- 
rally bombarded them.’’ 

'Well, if he hadn’t brought our honey down 
here it would n’t have happened !” returned Carl, 
hard-heartedly. "He ’ll bombard us, too, if we 
hang around here long.” 

They carried the dilapidated hives down to the 
boat with a good deal of difficulty, and rowed 
them up-stream. Two of them were ruined, but 
it was likely that the bees themselves and the 
combs would do very well if lodged in fresh 
hives. The outfit was nearly double its former 
weight and a later investigation showed that the 
bees had crammed every available cell with 
honey and had built fresh scraps of comb in any 
corner where there was room. 

On their return Alice met them with a joyful 
face. 

"What do you think?” she cried. "I ’ve been 
sorting over the cases of sections you brought 
back, and there are a lot that haven’t been 
touched by the bees at all — perhaps three or four 
hundred ; and there are quite a lot more that have 


212 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


only little torn places; so they can go as 'No. i’ 
anyway. Then there are all the sections that 
were n't stolen at all. We 'll still have some 
honey to sell." 

"Maybe a hundred dollars’ worth," returned 
Carl. "That won't go far toward our big pa>- 
ment next week." 

"Yes, it will — with our extracted honey," urged 
Bob. "We must get it all off, extract every drop 
we have, and sell it quick — sacrifice it if neces- 
sary. Anything to get returns at once !" 

"There must be four hundred dollars’ worth 
on the hives. We can make the payment, if 
we ’re quick," said Alice. 

"Anyway, we won't have a cent left over," in- 
sisted Carl, who seemed determined to look on the 
black side. 

"But we have the bees. Next year they 'll 
make our fortunes," said Alice, cheerfully. 

Tired as he was. Bob paddled down to Morton 
that afternoon, wrote a letter of explanation to 
Brown & Son, and ordered by telegraph nine 
hundred five-pound honey pails, to be shipped by 
return freight. The pails cost forty dollars, and 


REAPING THE HARVEST 


213 

he groaned inwardly as he parted with the money. 

It was with some uneasiness that he navigated 
his boat past the squatter's clearing, but he saw 
nothing of any of the Larue family, either coming 
or going. When he got back to the bee-yard he 
found that Alice and Carl had been busy. They 
had brought in the old honey extractor, cleaned 
and oiled it and set it up, along with the honey- 
tanks. Carl had improvised an uncapping-box 
from the rain-water barrel, and they had already 
extracted the honey from a great number of the 
damaged and unfinished sections of comb. 

The three of them finished up that part of the 
work during the afternoon and cleaned out all 
the honey from the unsaleable sections and from 
those that the bees had torn in Larue's barn. 
From these they got more than a thousand pounds 
of fine, clear honey. It was an excellent begin- 
ning. 

But it was only a beginning. In five days they 
would have to pay Mr. Farr five hundred dollars 
with interest. To sell the honey might well take 
two days. Consequently they had something 
more than two days in which to take off, extract. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


214 

and pack a crop of perhaps four thousand pounds 
of honey. It would have been a fairly large un- 
dertaking for skilled men, and the Harmans were 
quite unaccustomed to extracting on a large scale. 

But they had determination enough to make 
up for lack of experience. They went to bed 
early, in order to have as long a rest as possible. 
By daylight Alice was preparing breakfast, and 
the sun was not more than fairly above the trees 
when they attacked the big job. 

Armed with veils, gloves, smokers, and bee- 
brushes, the boys went out to the yard, while 
Alice waited for the honey to come in. The big 
extracting supers were full of bees, that rushed 
up furiously when the cover was lifted off. 
Carl drove them down with smoke, while Bob 
quickly lifted out comb after comb, shook and 
brushed off the bees in masses before the hive, 
and put the combs into an empty super. When 
that was full, he carried it with some difficulty 
into the house. While he was gone Carl removed 
the now vacant super, closed the hive, and smoked 
another. Bob came back in a moment and 
cleared the bees from this super, carrying it like- 


REAPING THE HARVEST 215 

wise into the cabin. Super after super came off, 
and when seven or eight of them were stacked 
in the honey-room they began extracting opera- 
tions. 

Alice had volunteered to do the uncapping, as 
she had been accustomed to do it at home, and she 
had the huge, razor-edged honey-knife already 
standing in a pail of hot water, since the edge 
cuts much better when warm enough to melt 
the wax. 

She rested one of the full honeycombs on the 
rim of the barrel, and with a single sweep of the 
great knife she sliced off the entire outer sealed 
surface of the comb, so as to leave the cells open. 
Repeating this operation upon the other side, she 
handed the comb to Carl, who slipped it into the 
extractor. When four combs had been uncapped 
and put into the machine, he turned the crank 
vigorously. The reel whirred as the combs spun ' 
round; impelled by centrifugal force, the honey 
flew out of the cells against the sides of the ex- 
tractor and dribbled slowly down to the bottom. 

When he stopped the machine to take out the 
now empty combs Carl put his finger down into 


2i6 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


the extractor and scraped up a dripping finger- 
ful of honey, which he put into his mouth. 

''Delicious!” he exclaimed, with high appre- 
ciation. 

Meanwhile Alice had uncapped a fresh set of 
four combs, and a pool of honey was forming in 
the bottom of the extractor. It was so thick that 
it ran very slowly down the sides, but within a 
few minutes it stood several inches deep. Bob 
drew off a pailful through the gate, and poured it 
through the cheese-cloth strainer into one of the 
tanks. It was almost water-clear, thick and rich 
— honey of the very highest grade. 

Bob then returned to the hives and began to 
bring in supers single-handed, taking back the 
sets of emptied combs and replacing them on the 
hives. He was able to attend to this duty as fast 
as Alice and Carl could uncap and extract. At 
noon, when Alice stopped work to prepare dinner, 
they had extracted almost six hundred pounds 
of honey. It was the harvest from fourteen 
hives. 

"Why, that is n’t half bad,” said Alice, after 


REAPING THE HARVEST 


217 

making this calculation. ‘That amounts to 
about forty-five pounds per hive. Better than I 
expected from this poor season.’' 

“We may have more honey than we think,” 
said Carl, brightening. “But we must get ahead 
faster, or it '11 take us all the week.” 

During the afternoon they managed to empty 
the supers of twenty-one colonies. But these 
were not quite so well filled, and yielded only a 
little more than seven hundred pounds. 

That night it rained — the longed-for rain, now 
too late to be of service. Early the next morn- 
ing they set to work again, but had to stop taking 
off honey on account of a fresh downpour. In 
the midst of the rain the wagon arrived from 
Morton with the nine hundred honey-pails. 

“Could n’t we send some of it back with him?” 
suggested Alice. 

So they begged the teamster to wait a few 
hours, and set to work furiously, filling the tins 
from the tanks. Bob sat by the tank with a 
mountain of five-pound pails beside him, filling 
them rapidly from the open honey-gate. Once 


2i8 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


full, he passed them to Alice, who wiped them 
clean and put on the covers; then Carl nailed 
them up again in their shipping crates. 

At noon they ate a hasty, cold luncheon, and 
again set feverishly to work at the pails. They 
made such speed that at four o'clock they were 
able to start the wagon back with a load of two 
hundred five-pound pails of honey. 

The rain had stopped, and they began to take 
off honey and extract again. They were getting 
rather tired, and the task before them seemed 
endless. It was the twenty-ninth of the month. 
It seemed hardly possible that they could put up 
all that honey and turn it into cash in less than 
three days. 

All that afternoon they toiled, weary and silent, 
but still determined. The uncapping barrel was 
nearly full of oozy masses of comb, from which 
the honey drained slowly into a pail through a 
hole in the bottom. The three Harmans were 
smeared to the eyes with honey. They were stiff 
with stings, too, for the whole room was crawling 
with bees that had been brought in on the combs. 
They were underfoot, on the walls, in the cap- 


REAPING THE HARVEST 219 

pings and the strainer, and a great mass had 
clustered on the window like a swarm. 

By six o’clock there were scarcely half a dozen 
hives left uncleared in the apiary, though a large 
pile of unhandled supers had accumulated in the 
workroom. They stopped work, and the boys 
helped Alice to get supper. 

‘'But we ’re not going to get through in time,” 
said Bob, anxiously. “It ’ll take us nearly all of 
to-morrow to extract and can up the rest of the 
honey. Then it ’ll take some time to get it sold.” 

“But we ’ve got to get through in time !” cried 
Alice. “Are we going to fail now by just a few 
hours?” 

“Well, let ’s finish the extracting to-night — 
work till it ’s done,” Bob proposed. 

“All right,” replied Carl, wearily. “I ’m 
game !” 

So after supper they attacked their task afresh. 
The boys tried to get all the supers into the house 
while daylight lasted. They worked hard, but 
the last supers were very heavy, the bees were 
cross as night came on, and darkness had fallen 
before they got the last one in. Alice placed 


220 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


several beeswax candles about the room, and they 
began to extract. 

Hour after hour the whir and rattle of the 
extractor went on. It was almost the only sound 
in the room, for they were too tired to talk. The 
pile of full supers went down, and the empty 
ones went up, till they clogged the room, and had 
to be carried outdoors. Alice uncapped till she 
could no longer hold the slippery knife-handle, 
and Carl took her place, while she drew off honey 
from the extractor into the tanks. It was hot in 
the choked little room, reeking with the odor of 
honey and the smell of the candles and the tank- 
ful of wet cappings, and occasionally they went 
outdoors for a few minutes to cool off and breathe 
a little. 

‘'Alice said that bee-keeping was kid-glove 
work — nothing heavy or hard about it,’' remarked 
Carl ironically during one of these rests. 

It seemed to be tacitly understood that they 
were to keep at it till the honey was all extracted, 
and they stayed doggedly at work despite weari- 
ness and stings. It was shortly after one o’clock 
when they emptied the last super; they were all 


REAPING THE HARVEST 


221 


saturated with honey and perspiration; the un- 
capping tank was heaped with wax, and the 
candles had burned low. All the tanks were 
brimful, and there was over a hundred pounds 
in the reservoir of the extractor. 

‘'Going to can it up?’’ asked Carl, faintly. 

“Not much!” Bob ejaculated. “I 'm going to 
bed.” 

They were all ready to go. Alice retired to 
her room, and the boys spread blankets on the 
floor of the living-room. They were tired enough 
to doze the moment their heads touched the pil- 
low, but Bob had not been in bed for five minutes 
when he bounced up with a yell. A bee had 
stung him on the leg. 

The floor and the blankets were alive with bees. 
Bees seemed to be everywhere. The boys shook 
out their bedding, swept up the floor, and tried 
again. There were fewer bees now, but still 
enough to make their presence felt, and finally 
the boys became nervous and wakeful, imagining 
that they felt crawling bees even where there 
were none. After a restless half-hour Bob got 
up and lighted a candle. 


222 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


“I can't sleep. I 'm going to can up honey/' 
he announced. 

Carl wearily followed him, and after they had 
been at work a few minutes Alice came out and 
joined them. There had not been so many bees 
in her room, but more than enough to make sleep- 
ing impossible. 

Hour after hour they drew off honey from the 
big tanks into the little pails, and packed them in 
the crates. They worked till after three o'clock, 
stopped for hot coffee and bread, and completed 
their great task soon after sunrise. There were 
altogether 675 five-pound tins, beside the two 
hundred already sent to Morton — a total crop of 
4375 pounds. At least fifty pounds more would 
still drain from the uncapping tank. 

But they were too dead weary to rejoice. 
They ate a hastily prepared breakfast, then car- 
ried the blankets to a sunny spot outdoors and 
went sound asleep. Not one of them woke till 
nearly noon, when they were aroused by the 
hallooing of the teamster, who had been ordered 
to come back that day for another load. 

It made a big load, and the man was unwilling 


REAPING THE HARVEST 223 
to take it. But they could not think of another 
day’s wait, and finally persuaded him with argu- 
ments and increased pay. Bob was to go out with 
the load, they had agreed. He was to ship the 
honey and go to Toronto with it. There he was 
to make the quickest possible sale and send the 
money back by telegraph. 

‘‘You ’d better come over to Morton on the first 
of August, day after to-morrow,” he said to Carl, 
as he was leaving. “Probably you ’ll find the 
money waiting for you at the telegraph office. If 
it is n’t there, wait at the hotel, and I ’ll telephone 
you some time during the day. In case there ’s 
any delay, get old Farr to let us have a few days’ 
grace. He ought to do that, especially if we pay 
him for the accommodation.” 

Bob went off on the loaded wagon. Carl and 
Alice were too thoroughly tired to feel inclined to 
clear up the sticky litter in the extracting-room 
and they spent most of the day in sleep. 

Next morning, however, they put things in or- 
der. The tank of wet cappings was left to drain 
still longer, but Alice washed down the floor, re- 
moved the extracting outfit, and restored the boys’ 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


224 

bed. All the live bees in the room were by this 
time clustered in a quiet lump on the window, and 
Carl was able to brush them off gently into a 
bucket and carry them out to a hive like a natural 
swarm. He put most of the wet supers back on 
the hives whence they had been taken, and was 
surprised to notice that the bees paid no attention 
to these fresh, sticky combs when they were ex- 
posed in the yard. A little honey seemed to be 
coming in. He could not guess its source, but it 
^ was enough to keep the bees from robbing. 

All this did not take them more than a couple 
of hours, and Alice had even time to wash, dry, 
and iron a blouse before starting for the village 
which represented civilization for them just then. 
Carl also paid civilization the homage of brushing 
his shoes and putting on a tie under his low col- 
lar, and then they made an early start down the 
river. 

They rather disliked to leave the cabin un- 
guarded, but this time it contained little of value. 
As they passed Indian Slough they spied Larue on 
the shore ; he looked long and steadily after them, 
but neither made any sign. 


REAPING THE HARVEST 225 

‘'Don’t like it!” remarked Carl. ''He knows 
we ’ve gone away now, and goodness knows what 
he may do to the bees !” 

‘T don’t think he ’ll touch them. He must have 
had enough of fighting bees,” returned Alice. 

Anyhow, it was a chance that had to be taken, 
for they could not stand on guard by the apiary 
forever. They reached Morton about ten o’clock 
and went straight to the telegraph office, where 
they were bitterly disappointed to find no waiting 
message from Bob. 

A feeling of impending misfortune crept over 
both of them. They had fully expected the 
money to be there. 

‘T do hope Bob doesn’t try one of his wild 
bluffs for a high price and miss a sale altogether !” 
Carl muttered. 

Alice went to the hotel, to be on the lookout for 
a telephone call, while Carl hung about the tele- 
graph office. At every clicking of the keys he 
thrilled with anticipation, but noon arrived, and 
one o’clock, and still no word from Toronto. 
Carl then hunted up Mr. Farr and explained the 
situation. 


226 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


don’t know why Bob has n’t wired,” he said, 
‘*but we ’ve got the honey and it ’s as safe as 
money in the bank. It ’s only a matter of a few 
hours, or days, at the most. If you ’ll give us a 
little extension of time we ’ll gladly pay you for it. 
Anything you wish, five dollars, or ten dollars a 
day, even.” 

But the postmaster shook his head with a grim 
smile. 

’ll give you all the time the law allows, and 
not an hour longer !” he said. 

‘‘Yes, but can’t you — ” 

“No, I can’t. I told you out and out at the start 
that you ’d get no kindness from me — straight 
business and nothing further.” 

He refused to hear a word of Carl’s protes- 
tations, and at last the boy went to the ho- 
tel, indignant and keenly anxious. Alice had 
had no message. They waited, staying near 
the telephone; unable to read, unable to 
talk, till, about four o’clock, a call came for 
Carl. 

Almost breathless, he took the receiver, and 
recognized Bob’s long-distance voice. 


REAPING THE HARVEST 227 

'Ts that you, Bob ?” he cried. ‘What have you 
done ? Farr won’t give us an hour’s time.” 

“Never mind!” came his brother’s reassuring 
voice. “It ’s all right. I sold at ten and a half. 
I ’ve got the money and I ’ll wire it at once.” 

Ten and a half ! They had not expected to get 
over ten cents for the extracted honey. Carl al- 
most shouted, and Alice gasped with relief when 
he told her. It seemed as if a mountain’s weight 
had been lifted off their shoulders. 

But there must have been some delay about 
sending the money, for it had not arrived by six 
o’clock. Carl hung about the telegraph office all 
the evening, growing uneasy once more as hour 
by hour went by. Surely something had not gone 
wrong at the last minute ! 

But the money-bearing message did finally ar- 
rive towards ten o’clock. It was an order for 
$612, which included the returns from what was 
left of their comb-honey crop. The telegraph 
clerk wrote a check, and Carl and his sister has- 
tened to Farr’s house. It was dark from top to 
bottom. Carl knocked loudly once, twice. There 
was no reply. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A RUN OF LUCK 

A gain and again Carl hammered at the 
door. At last some one raised a window in 
the second story, and a voice called down rather 
crossly through the darkness. 

‘Tt 's Harman !” Carl cried. '1 Ve come to 
pay your money.” 

‘Too late. I ’m abed,” answered Mr. Farr. 
“Come in to-morrow.” 

“Not much!” retorted Carl. “It ’s due before 
midnight to-day, and you said you would n’t give 
me an hour’s extra time. I ’m not taking any 
chances. I ’m afraid you ’ll have to get up.” 

Mr. Farr chuckled and left the window. They 
heard him stirring about, and presently saw the 
light of a lamp. In a few minutes he opened the 
front door and conducted them into the sitting- 
room. His hair was tousled, and he was in his 
stocking-feet and looked older and more wizened 


A RUN OF LUCK 


229 

than ever, but something seemed to be amusing 
him greatly. 

Carl produced the telegraph check. Mr. Farr 
scrutinizeddt carefully, chuckled once more, wrote 
a receipt, and gave them a check of his own in 
change. 

'm obleeged for the money,” he said, smil- 
ing broadly, ‘'but you need n’t have been in such 
an all-fired hurry with it.” 

“It was your fault,” Carl explained. “You 
said, you know — ” 

“Yes, I know, and I expect the joke ’s on me at 
having to get up in the middle of the night like 
this. But the law gives you three days of grace, 
you know. And besides, you can’t foreclose a 
mortgage without giving thirty days’ notice. 
You had a whole month to pay in. Guess you 
ain’t studied mortgage law. That ’s why I 
would n’t take your ten dollars a day for an ex- 
tension, and I was having my quiet laugh to see 
you so flustered and worrited, when you was n’t 
in no danger at all.” 

“But — but I thought — ” Carl stammered. 

“That I ’d grab the bees away from you to- 


230 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


morrow? Foreclosing a mortgage is a slower 
business than that. Now you think I ’m a pretty 
hard customer, don't you?" 

Carl blushed. 

‘Well, I 'll tell you now that I never foreclosed 
but one mortgage in my life, and that was on a 
farm where I hadn't got no interest for three 
years, and the fellow was boasting that Dave 
Farr 'd never get a cent out of him. Foreclosed 
on him, I did ; but I 'd have no more shut down on 
young people like you than I 'd have sold myself 
out." 

“I 'm sorry, Mr. Farr ! We did n't understand 
— either the business, or you !" cried Alice, and she 
held out her hand impulsively. 

“That 's all right, young lady. You did n't 
know nothing about business, of course, and I 
did, that 's all. I oughter have told you how you 
stood instead of laughing, and it serves me right 
to be got up out of bed at this time of night. And 
now my sleep 's broke up, I 'll have a chaw, and 
you can tell me how your investment panned out." 

Mr. Farr produced a black plug of tobacco from 
inside the clock, bit off a piece and disposed him- 


A RUN OF LUCK 


231 

self to listen. Carl briefly outlined their for- 
tunes, and told of the trouble they had had with 
Larue. Mr. Farr laughed heartily at the expe- 
dient of the robber bees. 

‘‘I see you young people are as sharp as they 
make ’em !” he said. "‘J^st think of sending them 
bees to bring back their own honey ! But I know 
Baptiste Larue — known him for years. He ain’t 
such a bad fellow, lazy and steals a little, and if 
you play him a bad trick he ’ll get back at you sure 
as fate. That ’s the Indian in him; and if you do 
him a good turn he ’ll never forget it, and that ’s 
the Indian too, I guess. Pity you ’ve got at log- 
gerheads with him. Better try to straighten it 
out. I ’ll have a talk with him when I see him, 
and maybe I can help to straighten things out.” 

They went back to the hotel to sleep that night 
with the feeling that an enemy had suddenly been 
transformed into a friend. Mr. Farr promised 
to help them in every way he could ; at the same 
time he was careful to assure them that business 
was business, and he would still hold them to the 
strict letter of the mortgage. But this time Alice 
laughed, and he did not seem offended. 


232 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


They expected Bob to come up on the train 
next morning, but he failed to arrive. It seemed 
unwise to remain away from the bee-yard any 
longer, so they embarked immediately for the voy- 
age up the river. 

It was a fine, sunny morning. The rains had 
broken the drought, and the air was full of the 
moist heat that makes good honey weather, but 
the raspberry bloom was long since over. 

The harvest was past ; the bee-season was prac- 
tically done, and they had saved themselves, if 
only by the skin of their teeth. Now that the 
money was paid, they both felt the reaction from 
the strain and fatigue of the last weeks. The 
thought of their finances depressed them. They 
had not two hundred dollars in the world. 

^Tf we ’d only had some more of this weather 
a month ago said Carl. 

‘'Yes, it would have meant hundreds of dollars. 
But there ’s no hope of anything more from the 
bees this year,’’ Alice replied. 

“Worse than nothing ! For we ’ll probably have 
to feed them sugar to winter on, perhaps a hun- 
dred dollars’ worth. It ’ll leave us nearly broke, 


A RUN OF LUCK 


233 

I ’m afraid. Alice, we 'll have to go to the city 
this winter and do as I proposed." 

They rowed up the river for a long way in 
silence. Then Alice, trying hard to speak hope- 
fully, said, ‘'Anyhow, we 've got a lot of valuable 
property, and next year — " 

“Hark !" Carl interrupted. “What 's that ?" 

He had stopped rowing, and there was dead 
silence in the wilderness. A jay called noisily 
from a treetop, and then again silence fell. 
After a minute, as Alice listened, she seemed to 
hear a deep, murmurous hum from the woods 
along the shore. 

“It sounds like bees," she said, doubtfully. 

“It is bees !" affirmed Carl after listening a lit- 
tle longer. “It must be our bees. But what are 
they after ? How far are we from home ?" 

Alice thought they were about two miles. 
They had passed Indian Slough some time before. 

“I do hope they 're not after Larue again," said 
Carl. “But most likely they 've found a wild bee- 
tree and are robbing it." 

But after a few minutes Carl grew so curious 
that he went ashore and tried to follow the flight 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


234 

of the bees, which could now be seen passing over- 
head. Presently Alice heard him calling her, in 
great excitement. 

She hastened after him. He was standing at 
the edge of a great burned slash that extended for 
fully two miles. It was studded with charred, 
spike-branched trees and second-growth hemlock, 
tangled with berry bushes, and choked with quan- 
tities of a weed that grew three feet or more high 
and bore spikes of brilliant, crimson-pink flowers. 

On the nearest spike of blossoms Alice saw 
three or four bees, and from the whole tract re- 
sounded the deep, busy hum that they had heard 
from the river. 

''D’ you know what that is?” shouted Carl, 
dancing with exultation. ‘Willow-herb! Fire- 
weed ! What do you think of that ?” 

Alice also recognized it. Willow-herb — also 
known as “fireweed,” because it always springs up 
in the track of forest fires — is one of the best 
honey-yielding plants in America. It flowers in 
late summer, and lasts until frost kills it, secreting 
nectar heavily whenever the weather is at all fa- 
vorable. A single colony of bees has been known 


A RUN OF LUCK 235 

to gather the almost incredible amount of four 
hundred pounds of honey from this plant alone. 
It does not grow in the settled portions of the 
country, and as the Harmans had never seen it 
in profusion, they had never thought of including 
it among their prospective resources. 

‘'O Carl cried Alice. ‘We may get a big crop 
after all ! Let ’s hurry home and see what the 
bees are doing.’" 

Burning with impatience, they hurried up the 
river as fast as the heavy old tub could be driven 
against the stream. Without waiting to tie the 
boat, they ran to the apiary. The air was full of 
a heavy roar. Bees were coming in by thousands 
and dropping on the hive-entrances. It was like 
the best days of the raspberry flow. Carl seized 
his sister by the waist and joyously hugged her. 

“It seems too good to be true ! If it only lasts ! 
Won’t Bob be astonished when he gets here?” 

Bob did not arrive till late the next afternoon. 
He had walked all the way from Morton to save 
the expense of a conveyance and he was very 
tired. He had also probably been meditating on 
their financial state, for he seemed depressed; 


236 WILDERNESS HONEY 

but Carl and Alice said nothing at once about the 
sudden change in their prospects. 

The bees had ceased flying for the day, but from 
all the hives, where the new honey was being 
ripened, came a heavy roar. After supper Bob 
walked out towards the hives and noticed it. He 
stopped to listen, and scrutinized the entrances 
closely. 

‘'Been feeding them V he asked at last, with a 
perplexed look. 

“No,’" answered Carl, gravely. 

“Surely they can’t have been gathering any- 
thing, can they?” 

“Gathering anything!” Carl burst out, unable 
to hold the secret any longer. “I guess those 
bees have gathered about a thousand pounds of 
honey in the last two days. The fireweed is in 
bloom. Bob. We never thought of that, did we? 
There are miles of it ! It yields honey by the ton, 
and if we just get regular rains we ’ll have our 
eighteen-hundred-dollar crop yet.” 

Bob could hardly believe the news till he had 
looked into some of the supers himself, where 
great patches of clear, white honey already 


A RUN OF LUCK 237 

showed. Then his enthusiasm knew no bounds. 

‘T was just beginning to think we 'd been fools 
to go into this apiary game/' he exclaimed. ‘‘But 
this puts a different color on the thing. If we 
only get the right weather, now !" 

For the next three days the weather was in- 
deed perfect, and the bees did marvelously well. 
A visit to the new apiary by the lake showed that 
the colonies there were also storing heavily and 
needed supers. They had never expected this 
yard to yield any surplus honey this season, but 
the bees were actually crowding the queen out of 
the combs with the rush of new honey. 

“We 'll have to get a team and have a load of 
supers hauled over," said Alice. “One thing 's 
certain — next season we must have a horse and 
wagon of our own. We must have paid out over 
fifty dollars for team-hire this summer, and now 
we '11 have to have all these supers hauled home 
again for extracting." 

However, they had to have a quantity of lum- 
ber brought out from Morton to make winter 
cases for the increased number of colonies, and 
the teamster moved the load of supers while he 


238 WILDERNESS HONEY 
was there. The management of the bees during 
this late honey-flow was simple. Bees rarely 
swarm after midsummer, and they only needed to 
be let alone to fill their empty combs with the 
honey from the willow-herb, whose crimson spikes 
were visible everywhere. Exploring the woods 
the apiarists found it in immense quantities in 
every burned slash ; they had seen the green plants 
often enough during the summer, but had not rec- 
ognized it until it came in bloom. There ap- 
peared to be forage for hundreds of colonies. 

Raspberries were ripe now, and the Harmans 
gathered quarts. They might have gathered bar- 
rels, if they had had any means of disposing of 
them. They ate them in every possible manner 
— raw, stewed, in pies, but mainly with fresh, ex- 
tracted honey poured over them, which they 
found to be a dish worthy of any epicure’s atten- 
tion. Alice also made a great quantity of jam 
with some sugar that was left from the spring 
feeding, and filled up all the remaining honey- 
pails. 

It was the fruitful season of the wilderness. 
Game was growing more plentiful. The woods 


A RUN OF LUCK 


239 

and streams were full of the new broods of par- 
tridges and ducks, strong-winged now and wary. 
Hares were everywhere, and once, while picking 
berries, Carl caught a glimpse of a black bear. It 
was only a glimpse, for the bear vanished like 
lightning, but Carl carried a rifle after that when 
he went for berries. 

He carried it in vain, but it occurred to him 
that the lakeside apiary was terribly exposed to a 
bear’s depredations, and he carried the big trap 
over there, and set it among the hives. He found 
the yard in perfect safety, and the bees storing 
honey fast in nearly all the supers. 

All through the latter part of August the 
weather remained warm and clear. Not much 
rain fell, but light showers came often enough to 
keep the fireweed from drying up, and the bees 
were busily at work almost every day. And now 
Alice set to work to improve the breed of the bees 
by queen-rearing operations. 

To transform a black colony into Italians, it is 
only necessary to exchange their queen for an 
Italian queen. In the course of a couple of 
months the old generation of black bees will all 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


240 

have died, and all the newly hatched brood will be 
the offspring of the Italian mother. But Alice 
could not afford to buy any more queens, and she 
had determined to rear them herself. 

The rearing of thoroughbred queens is a spe- 
cial art in itself. Any colony, if deprived of its 
queen, will raise a number of queen-cells to pro- 
duce another, but these cells will of course be from 
eggs laid by the old queen, and the new queen will 
be of the same breed. To change the breed it is 
necessary to manoeuver a substitution without the 
bees being aware of it. 

Alice began by killing the queen of one of the 
black colonies that had proved bad-tempered and 
a poor honey-gatherer. For four days, then, she 
let the hive alone. At the end of that time she 
went over all the combs and cut out every queen- 
cell that had been started. 

This produced terrible consternation in the 
hive. There were no larvae now in the hive 
young enough to produce a queen, for queen-cells 
cannot be raised from a larva more than three 
days old. The bees ran about the entrance in con- 
sternation, and the loud, shrill buzzing of their 


A RUN OF LUCK 


241 

despair could be heard across the contented hum 
of the normal colonies. But Alice was already 
taking measures for their relief. 

She prepared a flat stick an inch wide, just 
long enough to fit inside an empty brood-frame. 
Upon this stick she stuck a dozen little cups of 
molded beeswax, much the size and shape of an 
acorn cup, and into each cup she put a little lump 
of the white royal jelly taken from the queen-cells 
that she had destroyed. This operation is called 
''priming’’ the cells. The next step was to graft 
them. 

For some time Alice and the boys had been 
carefully watching the egg-laying work of the 
Italian queens that they had bought, and they had 
already selected the two that seemed best to use 
as breeders. Neither of these, it should be said, 
was the famous three-dollar queen. In actual 
performance she was outstripped by several of the 
ordinary one-dollar sort. 

From the hive of the best breeding queen Alice 
selected a comb containing eggs and just hatched 
young larvae. These little larvae were almost in- 
visible, tiny white worms no larger than the 


242 WILDERNESS HONEY 
comma on a page of print, floating in milky food 
at the bottom of each cell. It was delicate work 
to touch them, but with the point of a hairpin 
Alice fished out one of these for each of the 
primed artificial cells, laying it carefully down in 
the royal jelly. Hurriedly, then, lest the incip- 
ient queens should be chilled, she put this stick 
of cell-cups into the unfortunate queenless col- 
ony. 

’Next morning she went to look at it. Out. of 
the dozen cells the queenless bees had accepted 
ten, were drawing the cells out already into the 
usual peanut shape, and had fed the larvae large 
quantities of additional royal jelly. All was go- 
ing well, and Alice proceeded to prepare a fresh 
set of cups for another colony. 

It takes twelve days for a queen to hatch after 
the cell has been started in this manner. Early 
on the twelfth day, Alice selected the twelve col- 
onies in most need of requeening, went through 
the combs, found the queens and killed them. 

About three hours later she put into each of 
these hives one of her grafted cells, now on the 
point of hatching. In one case, indeed, the cell 


A RUN OF LUCK 243 

hatched in her fingers, and a beautiful, yellow, 
Italian virgin queen emerged. 

In ten or twelve days more, all these young 
queens would be mated and laying, and these col- 
onies could be considered Italian for the future — 
Italian, at least on the mother's side, for the 
worker-bees would also be affected by the drone 
parentage. 

Queen-rearing can only be carried on during a 
honey-flow, and while the good fireweed flow 
lasted, Alice raised several dozen queen-cells. 
All did not go smoothly, of course. Sometimes 
the bees refused to accept the artificial cells, tear- 
ing them down as fast as they were given ; once a 
young queen hatched prematurely, and her royal 
jealousy immediately caused her to demolish all 
the rest of the cells on the frame, tearing out her 
young sisters and stinging them to death. 
Some queens were also lost on their mating flight, 
but in all Alice succeeded, with the help of the 
boys, in requeening about fifty colonies. 

By this time most of the colonies had filled an 
extracting super apiece. Some had filled two. 
Nearly all the damaged sections of comb had been 


244 WILDERNESS HONEY 
put back on the hives, and the bees had refilled 
them with alacrity, sealing them over as white 
and smooth as if they had been freshly built. 
There would be a good deal of section honey to 
sell after all. 

‘T don’t believe I ever saw a honey-flow last so 
well,” said Alice. ‘Tt surely can’t go on much 
longer, and I ’m almost afraid to look out every 
morning, for fear it ’s over.” 

They expected frost every day now, but for 
another full week the weather continued warm 
and open, and the bees continued to bring in nec- 
tar, though in daily-diminishing quantities. 
Then one evening the wind shifted into the north, 
and the temperature went down, not to frost, but 
low enough to stop the secretion of nectar. The 
bees were idle, and that day the tragedy of the 
drones began. The long steady flow of honey 
had caused the bees to tolerate them until late, but 
now their time had come. At every hive-en- 
trance the bees could be seen chasing them, bit- 
ing and worrying them, driving them out, but sel- 
dom stinging. The big, stingless drone is very 


A RUN OF LUCK 245 

much afraid of his armed little sisters, and is 
unable to resist when thrown out of the hive. All 
day long could be heard the loud buzzing of the 
drones as they tried in vain to reenter their homes, 
and the next morning they could be seen by scores, 
dead in front of the hives, where they had per- 
ished of cold and starvation. In a week hardly a 
drone was left in the apiary. 

This meant an end to Alice’s queen-rearing, and 
she took out and destroyed the last set of cells 
that was under way. It was now too late in the 
season to kill a queen and attempt to replace her. 
Every effort had to be turned toward getting the 
colonies into the best condition for winter. 

The weather did turn slightly warmer, but the 
honey-flow did not recommence. Then, early one 
morning, when Carl went out to the yard, he 
found the tops of the hives white with hoar-frost. 

‘That ’s the end of it,” he said. “Well, we 
can’t complain, for it ’s lasted wonderfully.” 

That day the fireweed flowers hung wilted in 
the sunshine. The honey-season was certainly 
over this time. Nothing remained to be done 


246 WILDERNESS HONEY 
now but to extract and sell what was on the hives, 
but they considered it better to leave it in the su- 
pers to ripen for another week. 

All the honey at the lakeside apiary would have 
to be hauled home to be extracted, since there 
was no extracting-house near or any facilities for 
doing the work. It was somewhat uncertain how 
much was there, for they had not visited that yard 
for about two weeks. It was needful now, how- 
ever, to make up a close estimate of the amount of 
honey to be taken off, for they wanted to order 
the honey-tins to hold the crop. Bob offered to 
go over to the lake and count the supers, and he 
set off early in the morning, taking his rifle. 

It was a beautifully crisp autumn day. Squir- 
rels chattered from the trees; partridges roared 
up from the undergrowth. Bob sighted a fresh 
deer-trail on the old lumber road, but the legal 
season for deer had not yet opened. He shot a 
couple of partridges on the way, however, clip- 
ping their heads neatly with a bullet, and hung 
them up on a tree to be picked up on his return. 

He was quite a quarter of a mile from the 
apiary when he became aware of a faint murmur, 


A RUN OF LUCK 


247 

which he took for the breeze in the tree-tops. 
But as he advanced it increased to a roar. It 
sounded like a dozen swarms flying at once. Bob 
was bewildered, then scared, and he began to run. 

‘‘It can’t possibly be swarming!” he thought. 
“Surely the bees in this yard haven’t struck a 
new honey-flow at this time of year.” 

Breathlessly he came out upon the shore of the 
little lake. The apiary was in sight. The roar 
increased to a tremendous volume, but even Bob’s 
ears perceived the difference between the con- 
tented hum of a working yard, and this high- 
pitched, angry, tumultuous note that filled the air. 


CHAPTER IX 


STOPPING A WAR 

B ob hurried through the debris of dead tim- 
ber till he got a clear view of the bee-yard. 
It was plain enough that something was seriously 
wrong, for the whole place was in a state of wild 
disorder. The air was full of circling bees, and 
the white fronts of most of the hives were brown 
with masses of bees, crawling and surging ex- 
citedly. One hive near him was actually almost 
hidden by the cloud that hovered about it. It 
looked as if a swarm was coming out, but Bob 
knew better. It was war in the apiary. The 
bees had gone on a robbing riot, and this hive had 
been overcome and was being sacked. 

How this fearful state of things had started, 
Bob was unable to imagine. To be sure, there 
had been no honey coming in lately, and bees will 
always rob if they get a chance in a honey dearth ; 
but all the colonies at this yard were now strong 

248 


STOPPING A WAR 


249 

and should have been well able to defend them- 
selves. Bob could not think how matters had 
ever got in such a state as this. 

Advancing a little incautiously, a bee stung him 
on the nose, and he dodged back again into the 
shelter of a thicket. Keeping under cover, he 
skirted about the apiary, viewing the scene care- 
fully, till at the other end he came upon the clue 
to the mysterious rioting. 

Two hives had been upset, and supers, combs, 
covers, and bottomboards lay strewn about the 
stony ground. What had done it he could not 
guess. The thought of Larue passed through his 
mind, but this hardly looked like the work of any 
human honey-thief, for the parts of the hives 
were tossed pell-mell, and frames and combs were 
smashed and crushed on the ground. He was 
too far away to get a good view and was afraid 
to go nearer, for the air was alive with half- 
maddened bees. Not many bees appeared about 
the wrecked hives, however; and probably every 
drop of honey had been licked up from them long 
ago, but there was no doubt that all this broken 
honey in the yard had started the rioting. 


250 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


There is something about stolen honey, es- 
pecially when it is obtained close to the hives, that 
causes bees to become almost insane — sometimes 
entirely so. Virtually every hive seemed to be 
engaged in repelling robbers and trying itself to 
rob other colonies. The ground was covered 
with knots of fighting insects; in front of the hive 
that was being sacked there was fully a quart of 
dead and dying bees that had perished in the bat- 
tle. As soon as this hive had been cleaned out 
the robbers would attack another, in greatly in- 
creased force, and after that a third. 

Bob had no means of knowing how long this 
state of things had been going on, but it would 
greatly reduce the apiary if it continued much 
longer. He knew well what he ought to do ; the 
colonies doing most of the robbing should be 
smoked well to take the courage out of them ; the 
colonies that were being robbed should have wet 
grass piled all around the entrance. But he 
needed a veil, for it was really as much as his life 
was worth to venture unprotected into that cloud 
of maddened insects. Gloves would be useful, 
too, but above all he needed a smoker. 


STOPPING A WAR 251 

All these things were stored in the little hut 
that they had made in the center of the bee-yard, 
but to get to it he would have to pass right through 
the thickest of the fighting. He hung back for 
some time, hesitating and reluctant. He wished 
vainly for his brother, but at last he made up his 
mind, pulled his hat over his eyes, buried his 
hands in his pockets, turned up his collar, and 
made a bolt for the little storehouse. 

He shot between the rows of hives so fast that 
for ten yards nothing touched him. Then he was 
stung on the chin, and again on the nose. But he 
had almost reached the hut when something 
caught him by the right ankle with such force that 
it seemed to break his leg. He tumbled headlong 
with a sharp cry, fell against a hive and knocked 
it sideways. 

Fortunately it did not overturn, but a gust of 
savage bees surged into his face. He brushed at 
them, and tried to get on his feet. Something 
that hurt extremely was hanging to nis right foot. 
He made a blind leap to get away from that vor- 
tex of stinging insects, but was pulled up short by 
the ankle and fell again, with a rattle of metal. 


252 WILDERNESS HONEY 
And now he saw the great, rusty steel trap grip- 
ping his foot. He had walked squarely into 
Carl’s bear trap. He had forgotten that it had 
been set in this yard. 

For the moment he was too bewildered to real- 
ize more than this bare fact. He crawled away 
as far as the chain would let him, lay flat on his 
face and tried to protect himself from the tor- 
menting insects. It seemed to him that all the 
bees in the yard had turned upon him. They 
were in his hair, they got under his collar and up 
his sleeves. Probably there were in reality only 
a few hundred attacking him, but it seemed to 
him that he got a fresh sting every second, till his 
whole body was in agony. 

He drew his foot under him to examine the 
trap, and see if it could not be taken off. Age 
and rust had taken a good deal of the strength out 
of the springs, and, luckily. Bob was wearing 
heavy shoepacks that day with his trousers tucked 
inside them, so that the combined thicknesses of 
stout leather, cloth, and socks had deadened the 
force of the springing jaws. But it hurt ex- 


STOPPING A WAR 253 

tremely; his foot was numb, and he could not see 
how to extricate himself. 

He tried to press down the springs with his 
hands, but he was not strong enough. It needed 
a lever to set that trap. Reckless of stings. Bob 
stood up and tried to stamp down the spring with 
his free foot, but in his constrained posture he was 
barely able to stir it. It would certainly take a 
lever to open the jaws. If he could only escape 
into the security of the woods, away from these 
maddening bees, he felt sure that he could con- 
trive to get himself free, but the chain would let 
him go no farther. The chain was riveted to the 
trap in a heavy swivel, and the other end was 
attached to a stout maple sapling. The tree was 
too large to break off, but Bob had a stout pocket- 
knife and thought he might hack through it if he 
had time enough. 

But he was beginning to feel sick and dizzy 
with the stinging. A professional bee-keeper 
thinks little of being stung, and Bob was pretty 
well hardened to it by this time, but not to such 
wholesale doses. His body was beginning to feel 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


254 

numb all over, and his tongue seemed swelling in 
his mouth. A horde of bees, he thought, roared 
and crawled over him, but his brain seemed stu- 
pefied, and he could hardly think connectedly of 
anything. 

The idea dawned upon him that he was really 
going to be stung to death, and the horror of it 
whipped his brain to a last effort. He cast about 
for some expedient. If he only had a smoker! 
But why could he not make a smoke without one ? 

Instantly he struck a match and dropped it into 
a heap of dead leaves that lay beside him. They 
flamed up, and at the first puff of smoke the bees 
about his head drifted away. He piled on more 
leaves, using the dampest he could find, and cre- 
ated a suffocating cloud of smoke. He choked in 
it himself, but there were no bees about him now, 
except a few entangled in his clothing. 

He crawled toward the maple sapling, raking 
the burning smudge along with him. Under 
cover of the smoke he began to whittle into the 
hard trunk with his knife. Between the thick 
smoke and a bee-sting that had nearly closed his 
eye, he worked rather blindly, and had hacked 


STOPPING A WAR 255 

nearly half through the trunk before he discov- 
ered that no such work was necessary. The 
chain was merely wound around the tree a few 
times and hooked back into its own links. He 
might have known that it would be so fastened, 
and if he had been a little more clear-headed, he 
could have released himself a moment after be- 
ing caught. 

However, he cast the chain loose immediately 
and began to hobble toward the woods, trap and 
all. Once under cover, he pried open the trap 
without much diffculty, using a stout pole. 
There was a deep purple furrow on each side of 
his ankle, and his foot was blue and numb. He 
rubbed it a long time and bathed it in the lake 
before feeling came back to it. 

He felt decidedly weak and shaky and had to 
take off all his clothes in order to get rid of the 
bees that were still crawling and stinging in their 
recesses. Being stripped, he ducked himself in 
the cool lake three or four times and felt better. 
Naturally, he selected a spot for his bath that was 
at a safe distance from the apiary, where the 
war was still raging. 


256 WILDERNESS HONEY 

He sat down and rested for half an hour after 
dressing, and then felt recovered sufficiently to 
make another attempt at subduing the fighting 
bees. It was imperative that the disorder be 
stopped at once, and his late experience had given 
him a hint how to do it. 

Going to the windward side of the yard, he col- 
lected rubbish and lighted a number of smoky 
fires, so that the smoke drifted across the hives. 
Under cover of this smoke he advanced further 
into the yard and lighted more fires, till the whole 
apiary was veiled in clouds of vapor. 

Fighting stopped instantly. The one thought 
in each bee’s mind was to get back to its own 
hive, and by myriads they flew or crawled home. 
In a few minutes Bob was able to make his way 
safely to the little store-hut, where he secured a 
veil and smoker, though really he now had little 
need of either. The few bewildered bees drift- 
ing about through the smoke were far too fright- 
ened to think of stinging. 

Peace was restored, though it might be only 
a temporary one. Bob made haste to contract 
the entrances of all colonies that he thought 


STOPPING A WAR 


257 

might be weak. With a night’s rest and only an 
inch-and-a-half doorway to defend, he thought 
they should be able to take care of themselves. 

Then he went to examine the cause and begin- 
ning of the trouble — the two overturned hives, 
and he had scarcely glanced at them when he ut- 
tered a loud exclamation. There was no doubt 
at all who had been the disturber here. Long 
claw-marks ripped the paint of the hives. The 
combs and frames had been chewed and mangled, 
showing plenty of tooth-marks on the splintered 
wood, and a wisp of black hair clung to one of 
the covers. 

^'Br’er Bear, and no mistake about it!” mut- 
tered Bob. 

About half the combs had been chewed up, 
both the super combs of honey and the lower- 
story combs of brood. Apparently the bear had 
liked the taste of unhatched bees. What honey 
he had left had, of course, been cleaned up by the 
bees from the yard, and all the scattered wax 
was now dry as bone. No doubt the raid had 
been made during the night, and in the morning 
the neighboring bees had pounced on the spilled 


258 WILDERNESS HONEY 

and scattered honey and gone mad with robbing. 

There was not much that he could do now. 
He put the hives together again, gathered up the 
scraps of wax, and also straightened the hive 
that he had fallen against when the trap caught 
him. But he was much concerned for the fu- 
ture. It was very probable that the bear would 
return to this sweet corner, and the trap was very 
little likely to catch him. In any case, the bees 
would probably recommence their robbing the 
next morning. For some time that apiary would 
need careful attention. 

He would have liked to leave his smudges burn- 
ing so that the odor of the smoke would warn the 
bear away, but he decided that it would be un- 
safe. The lakeside slope was littered with all 
sorts of dry rubbish, and a little fire might easily 
burn up the entire apiary. Having done all he 
could, he took his rifle and limped home, rather 
painfully, for his ankle was very lame. 

^'How much honey did you find there ?’’ Carl 
demanded when he entered the cabin. 

‘T don’t know. I forgot to look,’' said Bob. 

• 'Only there is n’t so much as there was yester^ 


STOPPING A WAR 


259 

day, and there ’ll be still less if we don’t look 
sharp.” 

‘'What on earth ’s the matter ?” cried Alice. 
“And how did you ever get so badly stung?” 

“Robber bees — robber bears — steel traps !” 
said Bob succinctly; and he proceeded to tell them 
of the deplorable conditions he had discovered. 

“A bear — a real bear this time !” exclaimed his 
brother. “He ’ll be certain to come back to- 
night for more. I ’m going to lay for him. Al- 
lie, I ’ll get you your bearskin after all.” 

“Then I ’ll see you do it,” said Alice. “For if 
you ’re going after it to-night I ’ll go too.” 

“Nonsense ! We may be up all night. Bob ’ll 
go with me.” 

“Not on your life !” returned Bob, wearily. “I 
would n’t walk back there this evening to save all 
the bees from destruction. There ’s no sense in 
going to-night anyway. The bear will never 
come back with that strong smell of smoke in the 
yard.” 

“You can’t tell. I believe he would,” Carl ar- 
gued. “His mouth will water for honey too hard 
to resist. Anyhow, I ’m going to take a chance 


26 o wilderness honey 

on it and wait for him with some buckshot shells.’’ 

‘'And I ’m certainly going !” affirmed Alice. 
“You don’t want to go alone — and Bob says the 
bear won’t come, so there ’ll be no danger.” 

Carl really did not want to spend the night in 
ambush alone, and as Bob was in no condition 
for the adventure, he agreed to allow Alice to go 
with him. There would be a moon that night, 
but not till after eleven o’clock, and if they were 
to reach the apiary before dark, it would be neces- 
sary to start immediately after supper. 

Alice put on a short skirt, a jersey, and a tam- 
o’Shanter, and took the shotgun, for which Carl 
carried half a dozen buckshot shells in his pocket. 
He carried Bob’s rifle himself, and they took a 
lunch with them, for if the vigil lasted all night, 
they would be decidedly exhausted before day- 
light. Bob jeered mildly at the whole proceed- 
ing, and after watching them off went immedi- 
ately to bed. 

It was a long tramp through the twilight to the 
lake apiary, and it was almost dark when they 
arrived. A faint smell of smoke still lingered in 
the air from Bob’s smudges, and from the hives 


STOPPING A WAR 


261 


arose a dull, uneasy roar. Honey had been won 
and lost that day, but by no honest means, and all 
the bees were still suspicious and restless. By 
morning the fighting would probably recom- 
mence. 

There was a very faint air blowing from south 
to north, and Carl and Alice ambushed them- 
selves on the leeward side of the yard. The 
ground rose slightly there, so that they had a 
good view of the whole apiary. Clumps of small 
cedars grew all around them, and a big fallen log 
in front made an excellent breastwork. 

They placed their weapons across the log and 
sat down, glad of the rest. The evening air was 
cool, almost frosty, and the wilderness was very 
still. They barely dared converse, even in the 
faintest whispers. 

For an hour or so they were both on tenter- 
hooks of expectation, but as time passed this wore 
ofif, and they began to feel weary and drowsy. 
Carl would have found more difficulty in keeping 
awake, only that from time to time his ears 
caught some rustle or crackle in the underbrush 
that set him thrilling with excitement. But noth- 


262 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


ing ever appeared in the bee-yard, where the 
roaring had gradually quieted. 

At last the sky lightened over in the east, and 
the moon gradually appeared between the trees. 
It was almost full, and the forest changed mar- 
velously into deep black and pale silver. Voices 
began to be heard from the wilderness as if this 
were the dawning of the forest day. 

The long trail of a swimming muskrat crossed 
the surface of the lake. A raccoon cried plain- 
tively behind them, and away at the other end of 
the water they heard the uncanny, cackling laugh 
of a loon. There were strange murmurings and 
stirrings everywhere in the undergrowth, ' and 
then, far away to the north, sounded a single long 
shriek, savage and shrill, that caused a sudden 
long silence in the woods. Probably it was a 
lynx on his night's hunting. 

Moonrise put them both wide awake again for 
a time. But as an hour passed and nothing in 
particular happened, they grew drowsy once 
more. Alice frankly put her head on the big log 
^nd dozed, but Carl kept awake with determina- 


STOPPING A WAR 263 

tion, scrutinizing the edge of the woods all along 
the ghostly rows of beehives. 

Time passes very slowly in such a vigil, and 
the moon was getting lower in the sky. Carl 
was growing very tired of it, and he had nudged 
Alice awake several times, when it suddenly 
struck him that something had moved in the 
woods behind him. He was not sure what he 
had heard, or whether he had heard anything, 
but the next instant a black figure passed between 
him and one of the nearest rows of hives. 

Almost breathless, he squeezed Alice’s arm and 
she looked up, blinking. Carl pointed. The dim 
figure moved forward, with a stealthy, heavy, 
noiseless swing, till it came out in the clear moon- 
light, and they both saw the figure of the bear 
distinctly. 

It stopped and seemed a trifle uneasy, swing- 
ing its head and evidently sniffing the air. Then, 
seeming reassured, it suddenly reared up on its 
hind legs, and with one sweep of its paw, sent 
the cover of the nearest hive flying. 

They saw the bees boil up like smoke into the 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


264 

bright moonlight. Carl grasped the rifle, and 
cocked it noiselessly. The bear plunged his 
nose into the super, and they heard the delicate 
combs and frames smash under his teeth. 

A tearing flash from Carl’s rifle split the 
shadows. Alice uttered a shriek of excitement. 
The bear was down, rolling over beside the hive, 
and apparently done for. Carl dashed out in 
triumph. 

But as he approached the animal it reared up 
unsteadily, and launched a vicious sweep with its 
iron-clawed paw. Carl sprang back, threw up 
the rifle and pulled the trigger. Only a soft snap 
answered. He had forgotten to throw another 
shell into the chamber. 

As he tried to protect himself, the gun was 
dashed out of his hand, and he might have been 
struck down the next instant, but Alice charged 
up and fired both barrels of the shotgun at a 
range of two yards. As it appeared afterwards, 
she missed the bear cleanly with both shots; but 
the buckshot, clustering like a bullet, blew the 
nearest beehive almost to pieces. 

But the shots turned the animal’s attention. 


STOPPING A WAR 


265 

and it wheeled and charged straight through the 
shotgun smoke. Carl uttered a shout of horror, 
but Alice had already dodged and was running 
like a deer across the bee-yard, with the bear 
hotly in chase. 

Carl groped desperately for the rifle that had 
flown out of his hands, but failed to find it. Bees 
from the damaged hives seemed to be crawling 
all over the ground. He gave up the search and 
rushed wildly after the bear, shouting at the top 
of his voice to distract its attention. It paid no 
heed, but at that moment Alice, with most re- 
markable gymnastic skill, scrambled into a small 
hemlock just in time. 

But a bear can climb trees better than any girl ! 
Carl saw the animal rear up against the trunk 
and he flung a knotted lump of wood with all his 
force. It hit the beast on the back. It turned 
with a fierce snarl, and Carl in his turn had just 
time to scramble into a tree to escape its charge. 

The moment he had done so he was sorry, for 
now he was sure to be clawed out of the branches ; 
but man has an almost uncontrollable instinct to 
climb a tree to avoid a danger. The bear did in- 


266 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


deed rear up against the trunk, clawing the bark 
and trying to draw himself up. But he did not 
actually climb, and it came into Carl's mind that 
perhaps his first bullet had so injured the animal 
as to make him unable to climb. 

He looked down at it with the most intense 
anxiety. It really did seem either unable or un- 
willing to ascend the tree. It walked about un- 
easily ; then went over to the hemlock where Alice 
was perched, and finally returned to Carl. After 
sniffing about the foot of the tree it lay down as if 
on guard. 

Carl's hopes rose as he looked at it. For some 
minutes it hardly seemed to stir, though he could 
not doubt its intense vigilance. Perhaps it was 
remaining quiet in the hope that he would be 
tempted to come down. 

‘'Are you all right, Carl? Where is it?" called 
Alice, in a low tone. 

“Lying like a dog at the foot of my tree," Carl 
responded. “Are you all right?" 

“Fairly comfortable. I 've got a lot of bees 
on me, though," she added. 

Carl presently became aware that he had bees 


STOPPING A WAR 267 

on him also. The ground must have been cov- 
ered with them where the bear had torn the hive 
open; some had probably flown from the combs 
and settled on the two apiarists. Carl felt one 
crawling on his neck ; he brushed it off, and a mo- 
ment later was stung by another that had crept 
up the inside of his trouser-leg. He seemed to 
have bees crawling all over him, and no doubt 
Alice, whose skirts afforded less protection, was 
in even worse case. 

In fact, he could hear her squirming about on 
her branch, and brushing at her clothing. 

'They ’re stinging me all over,” she called pit- 
eously at last. "There must be more than a mil- 
lion bees on me. I believe I ’ll get down and 
run.” 

"Don’t do it !” Carl implored. "Try to stand it 
for a little while. Maybe the bear ’ll go away.” 

But in his heart he knew that the bear was not 
at all likely to go away before daylight, and that 
was a long time to wait. The annoyance of the 
bees was growing intolerable. In the semi- 
darkness they would not take wing; they merely 
crawled, and when they became entangled, they 


268 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


used their stings. Carl could hear the contin- 
ual ‘'biz-zz'’ of insects somewhere out of reach 
under his clothing, and every few minutes he felt 
the keen thrust. 

‘‘I simply can’t stand this,” groaned Alice, and 
Carl felt that he had had enough of it too. 

''Hold on ! Don’t move !” he cried. "I ’m go- 
ing to see if I can’t slip down and get the gun.” 

He was perching in a beech tree with long and 
spreading branches, and he had already observed 
that one of these lower limbs drooped to less than 
a man’s height from the earth. Carl began to 
creep out on this branch, as soundlessly as he 
could, but despite his care he thought he saw the 
bear move its head and look at him. 

The branch sagged heavily under his weight as 
he went further out. He was six or eight feet 
from the trunk, and on the side farthest from 
the bear, and he hesitated for several seconds. 
He could see Alice watching him anxiously from 
her tree. 

Finally he made up his mind, swung off, and 
dropped to earth with the spring of the bough. 
It swished back with a tremendous crackling of 


STOPPING A WAR 269 

twigs, and Carl bolted headlong for the place 
where he had lost the rifle. 

He had no doubt that the bear was pursuing 
him. He dodged around a beehive and glanced 
over his shoulder, but saw nothing of the animal. 
Striking a match, he bent over the earth and was 
lucky enough to catch the blue glint of the rifle- 
barrel almost at once. 

With a great feeling of relief he picked it up, 
tried the action and put in a fresh cartridge. 
The bear had made no sign, and now Carl as- 
sumed the aggressive and marched back toward 
his tree, holding the rifle ready. 

He could see the bear plainly, lying in the 
shadow of the beech, but it did not stir. A sus- 
picion began to grow in Carks mind. Advanc- 
ing a little nearer, he threw a lump of wood, hit- 
ting the prostrate animal fairly, but still it did not 
move. Carl chuckled to himself, walked closer, 
inspected the bear cautiously, and ventured to 
punch it in the side with the rifle-muzzle. 

"‘Come down, Allie!’' he called. ‘Tt 's all 
right. He ’s dead 

There was a crackling of twigs as Alice slipped 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


270 

down, and then came to look, astonished and al- 
most unbelieving. 

‘^Dead? What killed it ?’’ 

“That first shot of mine must have fatally 
wounded it. Anyway it ’s as dead as a door-nail, 
and seems to have been dead for some time. I 
expect we might have come down a lot sooner if 
we had known.’’ 

“I wish we had,” said Alice. “I think I ’m a 
pincushion of beestings.” 

“Well, go and get the bees off you. I ’ll light a 
fire, and then I ’ll do the same.” 

Alice retired into the shadows and loosened her 
clothing. Carl built a blaze from light wood, 
got rid of his own bees by brushing and slapping, 
and dragged the carcass of the bear up to the 
firelight. It was a medium-sized animal, with a 
beautiful, black, glossy pelt, but nearly the whole 
of one side was soaked and stiffened with blood. 
There was, also, a large pool of blood where it 
had been lying. It was plain that Carl’s first 
bullet had cut an artery somewhere, and the bear 
had gradually weakened and lain down to die 
quietly by the tree. 


STOPPING A WAR 


271 

There was something rather pathetic about 
this ending of the wild animal, Alice thought, 
when she had come back and had it explained to 
her. 

‘Well, you’ll have your bearskin anyway. 
That ’ll partly compensate for the honey we ’ve 
lost through him.” 

“Do you know how to skin a bear ?” Alice de- 
manded. 

“No,” replied her brother, “but I ’ve got a knife, 
and I ’m going to try.’' 

It was then shortly after two o’clock in the 
morning. They got out their lunch gladly, and 
ate it by the fire, and then Carl undertook the task 
of skinning the game. The light was not very 
good, and he had only a large pocket-knife, so 
that the operation proved longer and more fa- 
tiguing than he had expected. 

“I don’t know whether I ’m doing this in the 
orthodox manner,” he said as he wrestled with it. 
“But anyway I ’m getting the hide off all in one 
piece.” 

He finished removing it at last, and rolled it up 
to be taken home. It would need to be washed 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


272 

free of the blood-stains and combed as well, for 
there were at least a hundred bees tangled in the 
fur, where they had died in defense of their 
homes and honey. The carcass was fat and in 
fine condition. 

‘Want some bear steaks, Allie?” Carl de- 
manded. 

Alice thought not. The stripped carcass of 
the bear looked somewhat horribly human. 

It was between three and four o’clock by that 
time, and as the moonlight did not penetrate the 
woods very well, they determined to wait for 
dawn before returning. The air was decidedly 
sharp; the warmth of the fire was welcome. 
They arranged themselves as comfortably as pos- 
sible beside it, sat talking for a time, fell silent, 
dozed, and fell asleep. 

They were awakened by a shout. It was 
broad day, and the east was crimson. By the 
old roadway Bob was just coming into the bee- 
yard. He had felt uneasy about them and had 
started for the lake at dawn, despite his lame 
foot, bringing a honey-pail full of coffee. At 
sight of the bear his chagrin was boundless. 


STOPPING A WAR 


273 

‘Think what I missed !” he exclaimed. ‘T Ve 
been hoping for a chance at a bear all this fall, 
and I ’m laid up at the last moment and Carl kills 
the bear with my own rifle. Hard luck? I 
should say so! 

“But we certainly ought to take one of this fel- 
low’s hams back with us,” he continued. “They 
say it ’s better than pork, and we ’ve no fresh 
meat except what game we can pick up. Give 
me that knife.” 

It was no easy matter to detach the hind 
quarter with nothing but a jack-knife, but 
Bob did manage at last to get it off, though he 
mangled it badly. It must have weighed 
twenty-five pounds, and the hide and meat 
would make heavy enough trophies to carry 
home. 

How to dispose of the rest of the carcass was 
another problem. They did not want to leave it 
to putrefy in the apiary; they had no means of 
digging and did not care to throw it in the lake. 
Finally Carl discovered a little hollow back in the 
woods, and they scraped it out somewhat with 
sticks, put in the bear’s body, covered it with what 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


274 

loose earth they could gather, and piled stones 
over it. 

suppose one of us ought to stay here to-day 
and watch the bees, in case of more robbing,’' 
said Alice, doubtfully. 

None of them felt much inclined for this duty. 
Bob pointed to the sky, where heavy clouds were 
rolling up already. 

''No use. It ’ll be raining by noon,” he said. 
"Rain will keep everything quiet, and if it should 
clear off sooner, one of us can come out again 
this afternoon.” 

So they heated the pail of coffee at the last 
coals of the fire, drank it, and started homeward, 
well burdened with the bearskin, the meat, and 
the two guns. The sky continued to darken; a 
few drops fell before they gained the cabin, and 
by ten o’clock a cold, sharp rain was falling. It 
looked like the first of the autumnal rains ; a fire 
was welcome in the cabin, and Carl and Alice 
made up for their hard night by a long nap. 
There was no danger of the bees fighting that 
day. 

It cleared and turned warmer the next morn- 


STOPPING A WAR 275 

ing, and shortly after noon Carl and Bob walked 
over to the lake. All was quiet; the bees were 
flying a little, but were not attempting to rob. 
Evidently the intermission of that rainy day had 
caused them to recover from their demoraliza- 
tion. 

But they were alarmed to notice that CarFs 
fire, imperfectly extinguished, had spread among 
the dry rubbish on the ground till it had been 
put out by the rain. If the rain had held off, it 
might have done a great deal of damage. The 
beehives, made of dry pine, and full of wax and 
propolis would burn like so many torches. 

‘T ^m afraid I was careless that time,” said 
Carl. ''But we 'll have to come over here with 
our axes and clear away all this rubbish.” 

"Yes, and cut a regular fire guard around the 
yard,” Bob agreed. "We can't take any chances 
on this outfit, and there are always forest fires 
up here in the fall.” 

Just now the woods were wet, and there was 
no immediate danger, so they resolved to put off 
this duty till after extracting. For another week 
the honey was allowed to remain on the hives. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


276 

Frost fell on three successive nights, but the days 
were sunny and warm. The maples crimsoned; 
the woods became a flare of color. They had 
dried again too, and when Bob went to Morton 
to order a team to haul the honey, he came back 
with the report that the village was smoky, and 
fires were burning in the woods to the westward. 

Extracting the honey was no such a hurried 
task this time. First they cleared out the home 
yard; then had the full supers hauled in from 
the lakeside apiary; they took a whole week in 
taking off the crop, extracting the honey, and 
packing it in sixty-pound tins, and shipping 
cases. 

The crop of fireweed honey turned out a little 
over seven thousand pounds of liquid honey, and 
eighty dozen sections, nearly all of the ‘Tancy’^ 
grade. Besides, they had about two hundred 
pounds of honey reserved for their own con- 
sumption, and for giving away. A generous 
amount was allotted to Mr. Farr, and they 
planned to supply Larue with a rich helping if 
there was any chance of thereby healing up the 
feud. 


STOPPING A WAR 


277 

‘'Well, we ’re not making the $1,800 we hoped 
for,” said Bob. “But we ought to get $700 for 
this extracted honey, and about $200 for the 
sections. Counting what we sold before, that 
comes to over $1,500.” 

“Besides, we won’t need to feed an ounce of 
sugar for winter,” Alice added. “The hives are 
so heavy now that they feel as if they were nailed 
down. How we ’ll lift them into the winter cases 
I don’t know.” 

“Yes, and they ’ve mostly got young queens,” 
said Carl. “With plenty of food and young 
queens they ’re sure to winter well and make 
money for us next year. We’ve got over two 
hundred and ten colonies now. Next year we ’ll 
almost certainly clear a couple of thousand dol- 
lars.” 

But they did not get so much for this crop of 
honey as they expected. The fireweed honey was 
not quite equal in quality to that from the rasp- 
berry. They received only nine cents for the ex- 
tracted honey, and $2.25 a dozen for the sec- 
tions. That brought them $810, however; be- 
side they got $40 for a hundred pounds of bees- 


278 WILDERNESS HONEY 

wax from the melted-up cappings and bits of 
comb. The boys voted that $40 to Alice as her 
fee for doing the uncapping. 

There was not much left to be done now, but 
prepare the bees for winter, but that meant mak- 
ing new winter cases for nearly all the hives at 
the lakeside apiary. They had already had a load 
of lumber and a keg of nails taken there, and 
were waiting till they should have leisure to do 
the carpenter work. 

A few days after shipping the last of the 
honey, the two boys went over to the lake with 
their axes, intending to clear the place up as well 
as possible. When they came within half a mile 
of the yard they heard the distant, resonant bay 
of a hound somewhere to the west. 

‘'Some one 's breaking the game laws,” re- 
marked Bob, for the open season for deer was 
still far off. “Probably it 's one of those fel- 
lows from Morton.” 

The voice of the hound was coming nearer, 
and by the time they approached the lake, it 
sounded so close that they stopped in the under- 
brush to watch for signs of the hunt. 


STOPPING A WAR 


279 

In a few minutes a crash sounded in the woods, 
and a small buck dashed out and plunged into 
the shallow water. Instantly a rifle cracked 
from somewhere down the shore. The deer 
wheeled, turned straight toward the boys, and 
had come close before it caught sight of them. 
It swerved again in a panic and went across the 
bee-yard, clearing the hives in great bounds. 

‘'Crack! crack! crack!'’ came the reports of 
the invisible rifle. But the buck, apparently un- 
touched, vanished into the woods. It left a hive 
with the cover kicked off, and a cloud of angry 
bees hovering over it. 

In another minute the dog came up on the 
hot trail, yelping and quivering with excitement. 

“Why, that 's Larue's hound," whispered 
Carl. 

A moment later the squatter himself emerged 
from the thickets a hundred yards down the 
shore and came walking slowly up, with his rifle 
over his shoulder. The dog had been doubling 
about where the buck had swerved and now, 
catching the trail, he dashed into the bee-yard 
with a loud bay, which was followed by a sharp 


28 o 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


yell. He had blundered right into the hive that 
the deer had struck, and he was rolling over and 
over, with brown knots of bees clinging to his 
hide. Larue ran toward him, but the dog leaped 
up and bolted into the woods, yelping with pain 
and fright. He was evidently done with hunt- 
ing for that day. 

The boys squatted down close under the cedars. 
They heard Larue muttering angrily, and half 
expected him to shoot up the apiary. But no 
shot sounded. Perhaps he had grown afraid to 
meddle with the bees, and after a time they heard 
him tramp into the woods again. 

‘‘Now isn’t that the toughest kind of luck?” 
Carl muttered. “We ’re always running afoul 
of that fellow. Now I suppose he thinks he has 
a new grievance against us, though it was n’t 
our fault.” 

“I don’t see how we dare go away and leave 
all this bee outfit alone for the winter,” said 
Bob. “He ’d have it all destroyed before spring. 
We ’ve got to make peace with him somehow.” 

“Mr. Farr said that he ’d never forget a good 
turn. I ’d take a lot of trouble to do him one, 



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STOPPING A WAR 283 

if somebody would only show me how!'^ said 
Carl. 

For some time they discussed methods of 
placating him. As soon as they felt sure that 
he had gone a safe distance from the apiary, they 
set to work to clear up the fire danger. 

It was really too great a task for two pairs 
of hands. They worked most of that day, cleared 
up a great deal of the brushwood, dragged fallen 
logs out of the way, and even made some attempt 
at cutting a fire guard along the shore. But 
when evening came they seemed to have made 
little impression. 

^We 'd best hire a couple of regular wood- 
cutters to clear up the whole place and burn the 
rubbish,’’ said Carl. ‘'We can afford it now.” 

"Well, we might take another whack at it our- 
selves, when we come over to make the winter 
cases,” suggested Bob. 

They did not return to the lake for nearly a 
week, being busy at putting the home hives into 
their winter boxes again, but the place was con- 
stantly and heavily on their consciences. The 
woods had grown very dry again. No more rain 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


284 

had fallen, and the ground was covered with dead 
leaves, dry brush, and bark that any spark would 
set ablaze. Near the cabin there was not so 
much danger, for the river made a good fire 
guard on one side, and the woods on the other 
were mostly of small green spruce and hemlock, 
which would not burn very readily. 

There was fire somewhere certainly. For 
several days smoke had hung in the west, and 
the sun had gone down in a sullen haze of red. 
Almost every day the boys planned to attend to 
the lake apiary, but some other duty intervened, 
till, one morning, Alice ran into the cabin with a 
frightened look on her face. 

‘There 's smoke in the northwest — toward the 
lake!’’ she exclaimed. . 

Bob and Carl hurried out to look. Smoke was 
cetrainly rolling up from the direction of the 
lake, and there was a light breeze from the north. 

“That dry stuff along the shore must have 
caught somehow !” exclaimed Bob. “What fools 
we were not to clear it up. But maybe it has n’t 
come near the bee-yard yet. Get your ax, quick, 
Carl — and run!” 


CHAPTER X 


FIRE AND WATER 

T earing through the undergrowth, run- 
ning till they were breathless, walking fast 
and then running again, the boys made their way 
through the woods. To save time they took a 
short cut, but the ground was so rough that it 
may have proved longer in the end, and before 
they struck the old logging-road they realized 
that this was no light blaze in the dead wood. 
Volumes of smoke surged over the trees, and 
when they came within half a mile of the lake, 
they found the way blocked. 

Ahead of them the woods were burning to left 
and right. Hardly any flame was visible, but the 
forest was choking with smoke and full of the 
sharp smell of burning cedar. In the distance 
they could hear the roar of the flames and the 
occasional crash of falling trees. To save the 
apiary looked hopeless. 

28s 


286 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


‘‘How in the world did it ever spring up so sud- 
denly?’' exclaimed Carl. 

“Don’t know. But we can’t get through this 
way. Got to go round it!” gasped his brother, 
and they plunged into the woods again. 

Though they were not far from the lake they 
had to make a wide detour to the west to reach it. 
What they could do when they got there they 
hardly knew, but the bees meant everything to 
them. They could not let the apiary burn with- 
out a fight. 

Stumbling through the smoke, they reached 
the lake shore at last. Clouds of smoke drifted 
over the water, and the fire crashed and roared. 
Two hundred yards away they saw the beehives 
dimly and ran toward them. They had not yet 
been touched, but the fire was burning straight 
toward the yard, through the rubbish-ricks along 
the shore. 

“Can we clear a belt around them ?” cried Carl, 
doubtfully. 

“Too late!” said Bob. “Can’t start any 
counter-fire either. Can’t we move them out of 
the way somehow?” 


FIRE AND WATER 287 

Standing in bitter perplexity they looked from 
the apiary to the woods. The fire was coming 
down the eastern shore; the hives were at the 
southern end and would certainly be consumed 
when the conflagration rounded the foot of the 
lake. There was not much flame in sight, but 
dense smoke rolled across the water, and hot 
ashes were falling in showers. These might 
start fresh fires anywhere. 

‘We ’ll get trapped here ourselves if we don’t 
make haste !” Carl exclaimed. 

Bob went down to the shore and dashed water 
over himself. 

“If we only had the boat we could ferry them 
ofif!” he said, and then uttered a loud exclama- 
tion. 

“A raft ! a raft ! That ’s the thing, Carl. 
Make a raft !” 

“Yes, float ’em across the lake,” cried Carl. 
“Or up to the island. That ’ll be best. Let ’s 
get the logs together!” 

Halfway up the lake, barely visible through 
the smoke, was the little islet. It was barely 
twenty yards in diameter, but there was nothing 


288 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


on it to burn, and it would be a safe refuge if 
they could get the bees to it. 

Bob had already begun to chop furiously into 
a dead pine log. There was plenty of timber 
scattered along the shore, and, better still, there 
was the lumber and the nails that they had 
brought for the winter case. Time, only, was 
lacking. 

Both boys rushed about frantically through the 
smoke. They dislodged the logs that lay near- 
est the water, hewed off the large limbs, and 
rolled the trunks down to the shore. Splashing 
in and out of the shallow water, they succeeded 
at last in getting half a dozen small tree trunks 
afloat together. Carl dragged down boards from 
the lumber pile, and Bob spiked them down with 
the back of his ax for a hammer. 

‘We'll never do it!" Carl choked. 

But they hauled in fresh timbers, more boards, 
and nailed them to the first section. The smoke 
was growing hotter and thicker ; they could 
plainly feel the fierce breath of the fire itself. 
Pieces of flaming bark and branches were begin- 
ning to rain down. A partridge, blinded by the 


FIRE AND WATER 289 

smoke, whirred over their heads and tumbled into 
the water. 

''Keep going, Carl!’’ Bob cried hoarsely. "A 
little more ’ll do it.” 

Working frantically, they managed to put to- 
gether a few more square feet of raft and cover 
it with lumber. It was a rickety affair, but it 
must serve as it was. There was no time to do 
any more. 

"Now all aboard with the bees !’' Bob shouted. 

He wiped his streaming eyes, seized upon the 
nearest hive, splashed with it into the shallow 
water, and set it on the raft. The bees were not 
flying, but the smoke and heat had caused them 
to cluster out on the entrances in great lumps. 
It was impossible to handle the hives without 
crushing bees, and when this happened they 
stung savagely. 

But it was no time to think of stings, and the 
boys hardly noticed them. The hives were a 
heavy weight, however; they were stuffed with 
willow-herb honey; some of them must have 
weighed eighty pounds, and the most distant had 
to be carried over a hundred feet to the raft. It 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


290 

was hardly possible to handle these single-handed. 

Already the fire had burst out around the 
corner of the lake, and the dry wood around the 
apiary was ablaze. A flame suddenly sprang up 
in the middle of the yard, but Carl instantly 
stamped it out and went on with the work. His 
hands were bleeding; his back felt as if it were 
broken. He hardly knew how the last hives got 
on the raft. But suddenly there were no more 
of the painted boxes on the shore, and his brother 
was crying frantically to him to come aboard. 
He waded into the water up to his neck, helped to 
shove the shaky raft off, and swung himself upon 
the logs. With a couple of long poles the boys 
worked furiously to push the raft into deep water, 
but it moved with extreme slowness. 

The whole shore was now aflame. Masses 
of blazing wood, driven by the wind, went hiss- 
ing into the water. The heat and smoke were al- 
most unendurable. But foot by foot the raft 
crept out into the lake till the water grew so deep 
that they could no longer reach bottom. They 
were forced to use the poles as sweeps, and their 
progress became still slower. 


FIRE AND WATER 


291 

''We’ll save them! We’ll do it!” cried Bob, 
exultantly. 

But they were far from safe. They were 
about a hundred feet from shore, and the heat 
was intense. Fire flooded over the whole ground 
where the apiary had stood. On the raft the 
air was scorching, and presently honey and melted 
wax began to ooze from one of the hives. The 
combs were melting down. 

Carl leaned over the edge and dashed water 
over all the hives, and it steamed up from the 
hot wood. But he kept splashing them till they 
cooled somewhat; meanwhile Bob was working 
hard at the pole. Presently, by good luck, they 
passed over a shoal spot, and they dug the poles 
into the bottom, gaining several yards. 

At that moment Carl cried out sharply and 
pointed ashore. 

"What is it ?” exclaimed Bob. 

"Some one out there — I saw him through the 
smoke — just for a second!” the boy gasped. 

They both gazed intently. The drifting 
smoke-clouds shrouded all the scene. Then, as 
they blew aside a little, both the boys saw a 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


292 

human figure, a man, roughly dressed, dodging 
up the shore at full speed to escape the fire. 

‘Tarue exclaimed Bob. 

‘That 's who it was ! For a minute I was 
afraid it might be Alice come to look for us,"' 
said Carl. “But what can that fellow be doing 
here?’’ 

“He must have got caught on the other shore, 
and is running around the lake to dodge it. 
Why, Carl, you don’t suppose — ” 

“No, I really don’t think he ’d do such a thing,” 
Carl answered. “To try to burn out the apiary 
would be too much. He ’s making for home. I 
suppose he ’s afraid the fire may burn down that 
way.” 

There was no time then to speculate upon him 
any further. The air was a trifle fresher now, 
but the raft seemed to be growing more shaky 
every minute, and the boys were afraid it would 
actually fall to pieces. They had to propel it 
with the utmost care, but sparks no longer fell 
on them, and the little island was growing nearer. 

“We’ve done it, Carl! We’re safe!” said 
Bob, and this time he spoke with reason. 


FIRE AND WATER 293 

Still it took another quarter of an hour of slow 
and anxious navigation before they grounded 
the raft on the island. They jumped into the 
water and began to unload the hives at once, set- 
ting them down anywhere on the stony ground. 
This was another heavy task, but when it was 
done they wiped their streaming faces, and 
breathed more freely. 

Even here the air was thick with smoke, but 
it was not hot. Driving before the breeze, the 
fire seemed to be burning south and west from 
the lake and was now progressing up the western 
bank. Probably it would burn for miles, but 
nothing could be done now to check it. 

'‘You don’t think it’ll go near our cabin, do 
you?” asked Carl suddenly. 

"Not unless the wind shifts,” answered Bob. 
"But I think we ought to get back there as soon as 
we can. No telling what may happen.” 

"I suppose we can leave the bees here all right 
till the fire’s out,” said Carl, looking critically 
around him. "But how are we going to get 
ashore ourselves?” 

They did not relish the idea of trying to paddle 


294 WILDERNESS HONEY 
the raft over the half mile of water to land, and 
besides they preferred to leave it where it was 
for use when they should remove the bees from 
the island. Both of them could swim, but neither 
felt equal to a swim of that distance, especially as 
they were nearly exhausted already. So for a 
time they sat still on the island, closely sur- 
rounded by murmuring masses of their bees, till 
it was nearly noon, and they began to grow 
desperately hungry. 

‘'It seems to me a thousand years since I had 
breakfast,” said Carl. “Nothing for it but to 
swim, I guess.” 

They looked and dreaded, but there was really 
no easier way. Stripping off their already 
soaked clothes, they made them into two bundles, 
which they tied at their necks, and each took a 
loose plank from the raft to serve as a float. 
With this support there was no danger of sink- 
ing, though it made their progress somewhat 
slow, and in half an hour they stepped ashore on 
the mainland. 

The shore was still hot here where the fire had 
passed, and they had to go up the lake for half a 


FIRE AND WATER 295 

mile before they found a way around the burned 
area. Here the fire seemed to have started, 
spreading southward, and they wondered again 
what had been its origin. 

This necessary detour made it a long tramp 
home, and they were very tired, blackened, and 
hungry when they came in sight of the cabin, and 
perceived Alice scouting about on the trail in 
front, evidently on the lookout for them. 

‘‘Oh, boys she exclaimed, hastening toward 
them. “Are you all right? I Ve been almost 
out of my mind with fright. I could see the 
smoke, and I thought — I did n’t know what might 
happen. I knew you ’d try to save the bees. 
Are they all burned up?” 

“Not a bit of it,” said Carl. “We rafted them 
off into the lake.” 

“Good ! But I don’t care for anything, as long 
as you ’re both safe. You must be hungry. 
I ’ve had dinner ready for hours. I thought of 
trying to carry a lunch to you, but I was afraid 
I might miss you.” 

“The fire did n’t seem to be coming this way, 
Alice?” enquired Bob. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


296 

'^Oh, no. Only the smoke was thick. The 
bees have been frightened and cross all the morn- 
ing. The fire seems to me to be heading down 
the river, toward Indian Slough. I hope it 
does n’t get to Larue’s place.” 

The boys washed ofif the ashes and soot, sat 
down to the delayed dinner, and ate with appetites 
worthy of what they had gone through. Now 
that the physical strain was over, they felt the 
effects of it, and they ached in every muscle. 
They were disinclined to do anything after din- 
ner, and they all sat outside the cabin and watched 
the apparent progress of the fire, as indicated by 
the smoke over the tree-tops. It was certainly 
burning down toward the river, but far below 
them, and it seemed to be rather decreasing than 
spreading. Bob fancied it had encountered a 
wet piece of woodland that had given it a check. 
The sky was overcast besides, looking as if rain 
might fall before morning. On the whole, things 
looked safe enough ; so the boys went to bed soon 
after dark, and slept heavily. 

Carl was awakened by his brother shaking his 


arm. 


FIRE AND WATER 


297 

^‘Get up!’’ Bob was saying. 'Tut on your 
clothes. Hurry !” 

Very sleepily Carl obeyed, without knowing 
what was the matter. Daylight had just come. 
In the east the sky was crimsoning delicately, but 
down the river in the southwest, it was all one 
fierce red glare. A high wind had risen, roaring 
through the trees, and they could see the reflection 
of the fire on the smoke-clouds, and now and 
again even the tongues of flame themselves, leap- 
ing against the sky. 

Alice and Carl were both out-doors, watching 
in anxiety. 

"It isn’t coming this way, is it?” asked 
Carl, when he had taken in the alarming spec- 
tacle. 

"No. The wind ’s the wrong way,” responded 
Bob. "But it must be burning down mighty 
near our friend Larue. I believe we ought to 
take the boat and go down. He may need 
help.” 

"Yes, I ’m sure we ought!” Alice urged. 

"Seems to me I ’ve done enough fire-fighting 
for awhile,” Carl grumbled. "Why, yes, of 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


298 

course we must go/’ he added. ''I ’ll be ready in 
a second. Shall we take our axes ?” 

‘1 declare, we left them both at the raft,” said 
Bob. ‘‘Never mind; I dare say we won’t need 
them. Alice can stay and keep house again.” 

“Certainly not !” returned Alice, decisively. 
“There ’s a woman down there and two little girls, 
and they may need a woman to help them. I ’m 
going along.” 

“Well, come along then — ^but I ’d rather you 
would n’t,” said Bob with reluctance. 

They all got into the boat and went down 
stream as fast as the oars and current could carry 
them. It was growing quite light now, but the 
morning mists and the pervading smoke blurred 
the outline of everything. The sky was clouded 
and stormy-looking. It might rain. Meanwhile 
the wind blew strongly and seemed still rising. 

“If this wind keeps up and no rain falls, it ’ll 
mean millions of dollars loss, beside — very likely 
— some lives,” said Bob. “At this rate, it may 
go right over Morton.” 

They had gone a couple of miles down the 


FIRE AND WATER 


299 

stream before they really approached the fire 
zone. Heavy smoke clouds whirled before the 
wind; farther down the woods a little way in 
from the water seemed all ablaze on the right- 
hand shore, though the fire had not jumped the 
river. 

‘'Looks as if Larue’s outfit had gone!” said 
Bob. 

But as they drifted down things did not look 
so bad. A short distance back from the river, 
fire was, indeed, fiercely at work, but along the 
shore there was only occasional burning trees, 
dead ones that had been ignited by brands drift- 
ing through the air. They expected to encounter 
the squatter’s canoe, but nothing appeared on the 
smoky water, and they had come down near the 
beginning of the big slough when all of them, all 
at once, were startled by hearing a cry from 
the shore. 

“Listen! What was that? Stop!” yelled 
Bob 

They stopped paddling and listened. Nothing 
was heard now but the snapping wood. But they 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


300 

had all heard it — a thin, high-pitched scream, like 
a child's cry — or perhaps the cry of some lynx or 
wildcat trapped in the burning forest. 

was some of the Larues ! It was one of the 
children!" cried Alice. 

‘‘Must have been. Let me ashore. I 'll find 
it!" Carl exclaimed. 

“You won't go into that blazing wood!" 
ejaculated Bob. 

“It is n't blazing yet, but it soon will be. I 
can always get back to the river if I 'm forced out. 
No danger. Keep a close lookout for me if I 
have to run for it." 

Bob looked doubtful, Alice frightened, but Carl 
shoved the boat a little nearer the land and sprang 
out into the shallow water. He deliberately 
dipped entirely under, came up dripping, and dis- 
appeared into the smoky woods, waving a fare- 
well over his shoulder. 

The shore was lined with dense thickets of 
willows and small hemlocks, which he brushed 
through. Pausing, he tried to look about him, 
but the smoke-haze was so dense that he could 
not see any distance. 


FIRE AND WATER 


301 

"‘Any one here?’’ he shouted. “Larue! 
Child! Petite r 

But there was no answer. Carl pushed fur- 
ther into the woods. There was no fire yet in 
sight, and the wind made the air less choking 
than it had been on the day before, but the smash- 
ing and roar of the flames in the forest not a 
quarter of a mile away was tremendous. 

He groped his way forward, calling continually 
and peering everywhere, till the air grew hot, and 
he found his progress blocked by a clump of dead, 
blazing spruces. 

He backed off then and veered to the right, go- 
ing for several hundred yards in this general di- 
rection, but following a very crooked course. 
Despite all his calling and looking, he could find 
no trace of any human being, and he began to 
consider the search hopeless. Great sparks and 
pieces of flaming bark were driving overhead and 
falling everywhere, starting a hundred fresh 
fires. 

“Guess I ’d better see about getting back to 
the river,” he said to himself. “I ’ll get cut off 
if I ’m not careful.” 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


302 

He wiped his watering eyes and turned in what 
he thought was the direction of the water. In 
a few minutes he saw the woods open out before 
him, and he ran forward. But instead of the 
river bank, he found himself on the border of 
Larue’s clearing. 

His directions had become confused. But the 
clearing faced on the slough, at any rate, and he 
thought he could contrive to cross the mud to the 
river. The open space was so thick with smoke 
that he could see the house and barn only by 
glimpses, and the river was entirely out of view. 

He ran out into the open ground, passing close 
to the barn, and the memory came to him of the 
last time he had seen that place, on the night of 
the bee raid. Nobody would ever see it again, 
for it was certainly doomed to go in less than an 
hour. 

As he passed, it occurred to him to look in, on 
the chance that any live animal might have been 
overlooked there. The inside was dusky and 
smoky and scattered with dry hay. Carl per- 
ceived one of their own supers, which they must 
have overlooked in removing the stolen honey. 


FIRE AND WATER 303 

And then he caught sight of a wisp of a pink dress 
in a corner. 

He rushed toward it. It was a child, cower- 
ing down by some empty barrels, and he had no 
trouble in recognizing the youngest of Larue’s 
two little girls. He had admired her great black 
eyes and olive skin already, but now she was 
grimy, streaked with black and ashes, and fright- 
ened almost out of her senses. 

‘'Child!” exclaimed Carl. “How did you get 
here ! Where ’s your papa ?” 

''Sais pas” whimpered the little one. ''Je veux 
alter” 

Carl knew just enough French to gather that 
she was too bewildered to know anything, and 
that she wanted to go home. He could not im- 
agine how she had been left here, — unless, indeed, 
all the rest of the family had perished. 

“Come along. I ’ll take care of you,” he said, 
and he took her hand and led her out. But her 
five-year-old steps could not keep up with him, 
and he had to take her up in his arms and carry 
her. 

With this load he knew that he could never 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


304 

scramble and plunge through the marsh to safety, 
and he determined to go back by the way he had 
come. First, however, he put the little girl down, 
and ran to look into the cabin. No one was 
there ; it was dismantled of all its household stuff 
and bore the signs of a removal in haste. 
Plainly the squatter had got away, but Carl could 
not conceive by what carelessness the child had 
been left behind. 

Picking up the little girl again, he started back 
through the woods. The smoke was thicker; it 
was perceptibly hotter, and within thirty yards 
he found the ground on fire before him. The 
trees had not yet caught, but the leaves, dead- 
wood, and underbrush were all aflame or smol- 
dering, making a belt impossible to cross. 

Carl turned back across the clearing again, and 
tried the other side. Here it was even worse, 
for there was a huge ''wind-row'’ of fallen, dry 
spruces that was blazing like a furnace. Again 
Carl was driven back, and when he reached the 
clearing, he noticed that the roof of the barn was 
beginning to burn, ignited by falling sparks. 

There was nothing left for it, but to try the 


FIRE AND WATER 


305 

marsh. He paused and looked it over, trying to 
pick out the firmest part, and at that moment he 
heard two quick gunshots from the river, far out 
through the smoke. 

It was Bob, he thought, signalling his position. 
He forgot for the moment that they had brought 
no guns with them. Carl yelled loudly in reply, 
and strode out warily into the great slough. 

At first it was comparatively firm, then he sud- 
denly went over his shoe-tops in mire. He strug- 
gled out and tried to step from one tuft of grass 
to another till the vegetation ceased entirely, and 
he saw in front a dim expanse of green quag- 
mire, spotted with pools of oily-looking water. 
It was impossible to pass that way. Carl strug- 
gled back to firm ground again, set the child down 
and looked desperately about. 

Scattered fires were breaking out all around the 
clearing now, and here and there the tall weeds 
along the marsh were beginning to blaze. Soon 
it would be impossible to remain even there. He 
hurried up and down the margin, trying the foot- 
ing. Nowhere could he find any solid way. No 
doubt Larue would have known safe trails 


3o6 wilderness HONEY 
through the slough, but in the hurry and flurry 
of the moment Carl could not hit upon one. 

Again he heard two shots from the river. The 
boat was no doubt moving slowly up and down 
in front of the marsh. Carl shouted again, but 
the roaring of the fire and wind was now so loud 
that he doubted if he was heard. 

The child clung to him desperately, but she did 
not cry. Stoical, from her Indian blood, perhaps, 
she gazed at him in a sort of wild silence. 

‘'Never mind, petite!” said Carl. ‘T ’ll get you 
safe out of it yet.” 

But he could not see how it was to be done. If 
he had a couple of planks, to be laid down and 
moved forward alternately, he thought he might 
bridge a way over the slough. He hastened into 
the cabin again, to see if there was any loose 
board that he could wrench off. He could find 
nothing movable that would answer the purpose. 
The place was littered with scraps of rubbish not 
worth taking away — a few old muskrat skins, 
scraps of clothing, a torn blanket, and an old pair 
of snowshoes. 

The sight of the snow-shoes now gave him an 


FIRE AND WATER 


307 

inspiration. He ran out with them and hastily 
bound them on. 

^'Here, little one, climb on pick-a-back!’’ he ex- 
claimed, stooping, and the child obeyed, under- 
standing his gesture if not his words. With her 
arms around his neck, clasping her feet firmly, he 
trudged awkwardly out into the weeds of the 
marsh-edge. 

A hurricane of sparks, hot ashes, and bits of 
burning wood swept over him as a clump of burn- 
ing trees crashed down close to the shore. He 
had no difficulty in getting across the first twenty 
or thirty feet of the slough; the tufts of grass sup- 
ported him easily. Then the vegetation grew 
more scanty. It almost ceased, and there were 
stretches of bare mud, sometimes thinly caked on 
the surface, sometimes supporting straggly weeds 
that looked like streaks of green foam. 

Fortunately both Carl and the little girl were 
light weights. Together they weighed less than 
two hundred pounds, and Carl was overjoyed to 
find that the snow-shoes held him up whenever 
there was the smallest scrap of vegetation to 
bind the mud. The meshes were old and torn. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


308 

Brown water bubbled up between them, but they 
supported the weight as long as he did not pause. 
As he went farther he had to step more and more 
quickly to keep from sinking, till at last he was 
forced into a run. Sinking deeper and deeper 
at every stride, the snow-shoes scattered the mud 
in great flakes. 

Suddenly he tripped. Overbalanced by the 
weight on his shoulders, he went sprawling. He 
clutched at the little girl, who had shot over his 
head, and dragged her out of an oozy pool. Then 
a yard away, he spied a rotten log half sunk in the 
mire, and floundered to it. 

On this support he hesitated for a few minutes. 
Both he and the little girl were covered with mud 
from head to foot. The shore behind him, was 
veiled in smoke and he could not yet see the river. 
He seemed shut off, isolated on that quagmire, in 
the midst of dimness. 

All at once the signal shots banged again, 
sounding less than fifty yards away. Carl 
screamed wildly in answer, and, taking the child 
on his back, started forward again. But the 
footing became more and more treacherous. He 


FIRE AND WATER 


309 

sank at every step, and the mud flowed over his 
snow-shoes and weighted them down. It was 
only by great efforts that he avoided being stuck 
fast. 

But just when the snow-shoes were growing so 
heavy that he could hardly lift them, he saw sand 
and gravel mingling with the ooze. A little far- 
ther, and a rippling line of water washed over his 
feet. He splashed into it. In two or three steps 
he went knee-deep, then to his hips. He heard 
a splashing in the water, and dimly saw the out- 
line of an approaching boat. 

He flung himself forward to meet it, went over 
his head, and came up trying to swim with one 
hand and to support the child with the other. 
The muddy snow-shoes encumbered him ; he 
dipped under again, half-choked; then a hand 
gripped him by the collar, and he was hauled up 
to the gunwale of the boat. 

"'Bob!’" he spluttered. 

But it was not his brother. It was Larue’s 
dark face that met his, streaked with black now 
and looking wild with anxiety. 

‘‘Rosalie ! Ma petite! Tes sauveT he ejacu- 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


310 

lated and lifted the little girl into the boat. The 
next instant Carl himself got aboard, half scram- 
bling and half hauled up by the half-breed. Just 
then another boat rushed up out of the smoke, 
and he heard Alice calling, ''Carl 

"Here he is! Bo’ — bot’ safe!” sang out the 
squatter. "He fin’ her ! Here he come, crossing 
ze marsh on my ole raquettes. It is wonderful. 
Mister Harman, zis is w’at I nevaire forget !” 

Carl stuttered something, unable to speak ar- 
ticulately. He felt weak and dizzy and full of 
mingled smoke and water. He saw the faces of 
Alice and Bob looking anxiously at him, but they 
seemed to waver, and everything went round diz- 
zily when he lay back in the boat and shut his 
smarting eyes. 

He was vaguely aware of the movement of the 
boat through the water and of talking voices. 
He thought some one was dashing spray over him 
and he made a confused attempt to get up. 

''Restezr said Larue, and Carl "rested.” 

The bump of the boat against the bank brought 
him to himself. Water was really falling on his 
face. Looking up, he was amazed to find that 


FIRE AND WATER 311 

it was raining. The two boats had come to land 
at the temporary camp where Larue had removed 
his family. A bark lean-to shed was built against 
a tree; smoke curled up from a little fire; there 
was a shriek as Mrs. Larue rushed forward to 
the boat and seized upon her rescued child. 

There was a great scene of excitement and 
jubilation, and little Rosalie, who had hitherto 
preserved the silence of an Indian baby, now be- 
gan to sob as she nestled in her mother’s arms. 

‘‘He fin’ her!” cried Larue, indicating Carl. 
“I have been crazy. Can’t guess where she go. 
I search ever)rwhere — up, down the river, in ze 
woods, in ze smoke — can’t fin’ notting. T’ink she 
dead, sure. But Mr. Harman fin’ her, and cross 
ze marais on ze snow-shoes, by gar! Greatest 
t’ing I ever see!” 

“You ’re a hero, Carl,” said Bob, laughing. 

Larue seemed to be divided between joy and 
gratitude at the rescue of the child, and admira- 
tion at Carl’s feat of crossing the slough on snow- 
shoes. His wife’s protestations of gratitude 
were most profuse, embarrassing Carl terribly. 

“It really wasn’t anything,” he stammered. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


312 

'"Really I found her by accident. But how did 
she ever get lost ?” 

Both Larue and his wife volubly attempted to 
explain, mixing the matter up badly. It seemed 
that the family had been alarmed about the mid- 
dle of the night by the approach of the fire, and 
had moved out in haste. In the darkness and 
confusion Rosalie had somehow vanished. They 
had searched and called. Larue, who was very 
fond of his children, and of this one in particular, 
was like a madman. After establishing his wife 
and the other child in safety, he searched the 
shore up and down the river and went into the 
woods, without finding any trace of the little girl. 
On the river he had met Bob and Alice, who told 
him that Carl had gone ashore, and the two boats 
had rowed up and down on the lookout, firing 
signals at intervals with Larue’s gun. 

Rosalie herself could give no coherent account 
of how she had strayed away or where she had 
been. She knew only that she had found herself 
in the darkness and the woods, had been terribly 
frightened and was waiting for papa to come for 
her. 


CHAPTER XI 

A GOOD summer’s WORK 

I T had continued to rain, and it was coming 
down hard by this time, a cold, driving rain 
from the north, that would check the forest fire 
if it lasted long enough. Larue’s camp was a 
miserable place, and far from water-tight. 

‘We must ask them to come home with us,” 
Alice whispered to Bob. ‘We can’t let the poor 
wretches stay here in the rain.” 

Bob looked startled and a little reluctant, but 
Alice gave the invitation without waiting for 
him to object. 

“Mademoiselle is as good as ze angels,” said 
Mrs. Larue. “Certainely we be glad to go, is it 
not, Baptiste?” 

“Maybe it rain for two — ^tree days,” said the 
squatter, regarding the sky. “Put ze fire out — 
good! But zis is terrible poor camp. Oui, we 
go, and many t’anks!” 

He put some of his most perishable possessions 
313 


314 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


in his boat, covered the rest well with bark and 
boughs, and took his family on board. It was 
raining in torrents when they passed the clearing 
again on their way back, and everything was a 
mist of smoke, steam, and rain. But both the 
house and barn were still standing, and did not 
appear to be now on fire. 

It was a pretty tight fit for seven of them in the 
Harmans’ cabin, and rather a severe strain on 
the larder. But Bob went down to the river and 
caught a dozen trout. Larue sallied into the 
woods and came back in an hour, soaked like a 
sponge, but bringing with him five partridges. 
Mrs. Larue lent a hand at the cookery, and they 
produced a meal that was at any rate abundant. 

All that afternoon it rained, and, as Bob said, 
every drop was worth a dollar to that imperiled 
forest country. 

‘'We’ll be able to put our bees back off the 
island as soon as it lets up,” said Carl. “The 
ground ’ll be cooled off pretty well again. You 
know, Larue,” he added, “we had a fire of our 
own yesterday. Nearly burned up our bees at 
the lake.” 


A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK 315 

‘‘Yes, and we fancied we saw you through the 
smoke. But most likely it was n’t,'’ said Bob. 

Larue had been talking volubly and gaily, but 
his face suddenly fell. 

“Yes, I guess you see me," he said, looking 
sheepish. “By gar, I am a beast, an assassin. 
But I have some bad viskey in me yesterday, and 
I know no better." 

“I thought so," said Bob, quietly. “Larue, 
what did you want to burn us out for?" 

“Surely you did n't start the fire !" cried Carl, 
staring. 

''VoilaT said the half-breed, contritely. “It 
was one rotten treek. But, you see, you catch me 
in bear trap. Your bees sting my cow, kill my 
hen, sting my dog, sting me mos' to death. So I 
see ze bee-boxes up there all alone, and I say, ‘He 
sting me no more, by gar !' So I light fires — ^here, 
dere, many places at once." 

“I would n't have believed it of you, Larue !" 
cried Carl indignantly. 

“Sure, I sorry I do it now. But, you know, I 
have ze viskey in me yesterday. I get turned 
round in ze smoke, nearly get caught by ze fire 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


316 

myself. I see you rafting oif ze bee-boxes, and 
I guess you see me too. And then — ze fire spread 
and spread, and ze wind he rise, and go clear to ze 
slough and burn my house.’^ 

''I guess you ’re punished for it,” said Bob. 
‘'But we never meant to quarrel with you or do 
you any harm. You took our honey, you know, 
and you got stung when the bees went to bring it 
back. And we did n’t set the trap to catch you. 
We thought it was some wild animal, from the 
tracks you made.” 

The half-breed grinned, shamefacedly, yet with 
just a touch of pride as well. 

“Good treek, eh?” he said. “I learn him from 
a man in ze lumber woods. He steal hogs zat 
way — make track like bear.” 

“Fine trick, yes,” agreed Bob. “Only you got 
the worst of it. In fact, you ’ve come out worst 
in all your tricks, I believe.” 

“Serve me right, eh !” Larue admitted. “For 
ze honey, I steal him when I need ze money bad. 
But nevaire mind. Zat is all over, and we for- 
get. I ask your pardon for all ze trouble I make 
you. You save ma petite, and I never forget zat* 


A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK 317 
After now, I am yours. You say to me, ‘Larue, 
come!’ and I come. You say, ‘Larue, do zis — do 
zat !’ and I do zis, do zat. No money, no pay. I 
can never pay you for what you do for me.” 

“All right, Larue, we ’re friends henceforth, 
and we ’ll shake hands on it,” said Bob ; and they 
shook hands gravely all around to seal the peace. 

“You know, when we saw your big tracks we 
thought it was a wendigo,” said Alice, laughing. 

“Wendigo?” cried the half-breed, his face 
clouding. “When you see a wendigo?” 

“Why, there ’s no such thing,” said Carl. 

“Do not say zat. Ze wendigo — he is terrible! 
I have never see him, no — ^but I know a man, a 
trapper at Lac Temagimi — ” 

And he plunged into a terrifying tale of Indian 
superstition. He was an excellent story-teller, 
and as he sat with gesticulating hands, and dark, 
flashing eyes, he held them all fascinated. From 
this he went on to blood-curdling tales of the 
loup-garou, or werewolf, ghostly huntsmen, and 
other horrors of French-Canadian tradition, till 
Alice begged him to cease. She said she would 
be afraid to sleep that night. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


318 

‘'Don’t you like them ?” said Alice privately to 
Carl that evening. “I think Larue is n’t half a 
bad fellow, and the children are darlings. I like 
his wife too, and she says she ’ll teach me to speak 
French.” 

“I ’m afraid it ’s a queer dialect she ’d teach 
you,” Carl answered. “But really they ’re a 
pretty decent lot, now we get to know them. 
Anyway, I ’m tremendously glad we ’ve made 
peace.” 

It rained hard nearly all night, but in the morn- 
ing only a drizzle was falling, which presently 
ceased. It was cold and dismal, but the squatter 
rowed down the river to look at his property. He 
came back overjoyed. The clearing, he said, was 
choking with smoke and steam, but the fires were 
all out, and the house and barn were both stand- 
ing. The roofs were gone, indeed, but a few 
days’ work would replace them. 

“I get some of my friends to help me,” he said. 
“We make a bee, and soon put him right.” 

“We might let him have that lumber for the 
winter cases that we put into the raft,” Carl 
whispered to his brother. “It ’s scorched and 


A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK 319 

soaked with water now so that it would hardly 
do for hives, but it would be all right to mend a 
roof/’ 

‘'Good idea !” Bob answered, “and we ’ll help 
him mend it. We ’re pretty crowded here, and 
the sooner he can get into his own house again 
the better for us.” 

That afternoon Larue accompanied them to the 
lake apiary. Where the yard had been was noth- 
ing but a waste of wet ashes and rocks, but the 
fire was out, and at any rate the ground was thor- 
oughly cleared at last. From the shore they 
could see the hives scattered over the little islet, 
with the raft aground beside them. 

It was quite a problem how to get out to them. 
But finally, by Larue’s advice, they constructed 
a small raft which carried the three of them over, 
with a great deal of ricketing and splashing. The 
bees were all safe, with the exception of three 
colonies that had been melted down by the heat 
of the fire, and they set to work at once to load 
them on the raft again. 

Larue was useful at the rafting. It turned 
out that he was an expert lumberman and river- 


320 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


driver. He seemed as strong and wiry as a pan- 
ther, worked gaily and heroically, unmindful of 
an occasional sting. In fact, the boys could not 
help liking him, now that they met him on terms 
of peace. He might have been lawless enough, 
but he insisted on handling the heaviest end of 
everything, sang, chatted, laughed, and seemed so 
determined to win their good feeling, that they 
were both ready to forgive him all the trouble he 
had caused them. 

The lumber in the raft was now really unfit for 
use in the bee-hives, and Larue was intensely 
grateful when they offered it to him. Immedi- 
ately he went off and hunted up a friend of his, 
also a half-breed, who had been living unsus- 
pected all this time not five miles away. This 
man owned a horse and wagon, and next morning 
he hauled the lumber from the lake to the river, 
and they rafted it down to Larue’s farm. He 
must also have sent word to Morton in some way, 
for a couple of days later half a dozen dark-faced 
fellows came up the river in canoes, carrying 
saws, hammers, and axes, to assist at the ‘"bee.” 

Bob and Carl also took part. Two of the visit- 


A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK 321 
ors were skilful carpenters, and they made the 
house-roof tighter than it had been before. 
There was not lumber enough for the barn, but 
the half-breeds contrived a wonderfully ingenious 
thatch of logs, mud, and cedar boughs which 
would turn water as well as shingles. 

Bob took the opportunity of sending word back 
to the Morton sawmill for more lumber. It ar- 
rived a few days later, and the boys were amazed 
to find Larue and the same gang of half-breed 
helpers come with it. They all went out to the 
lake, and unloaded the cargo. The half-breeds 
had been under the impression that a house was 
to be built, but they were all men who, with an axe 
and a knife, could make anything from a gun- 
stock to a boat. It was only necessary to show 
them how the winter cases were to be made, and 
the speed with which the boards were cut up and 
nailed together was marvelous. There was a con- 
stant fire of song and chaff in French patois kept 
up, but the work was all finished so early that the 
men went into the woods, cut timbers, and ran up 
the framing of an extracting-house, which could 
be finished the next season. 


WILDERNESS HONEY 


322 

They would not hear of taking any pay for this 
work. However, they all came back to the cabin, 
where Alice had a great supper prepared of 
everything eatable that she could find within 
reach. It was the honey that found greatest fa- 
vor, however, with the guests; they all seemed 
to have a child's appetite for sweets, and it van- 
ished in immense quantities. Luckily there was 
plenty of it, and each of the men was provided 
with some to take away. 

Later in the evening they built a great fire in 
the clearing, and there by the red light the half- 
breeds sang voyageur songs, habitant chansons, 
old songs that had been sung in Quebec for two 
hundred years, and some of them in Normandy 
before that. The half-breeds had excellent 
voices, and the songs were all new to the Har- 
mans — ‘"Entre Paris et St. Denis," ‘'La Claire 
Fontaine," and the canoe song with the rattling 
chorus of “En Roulant ma Boule." This last 
was a particular favorite. 

It was midnight when they broke off, and too 
late to go back to Morton. Fortunately it was a 
fine night, and they camped by the fire on heaps 


A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK 323 

of spruce twigs. In the morning, after drinking 
an enormous kettle of black coffee, and eating 
honey and bread, they started homewards, all 
piled together in the single wagon, laughing and 
waving farewells. The creaking of the wagon 
mingled with the diminishing chorus of : 

“Rouli, roulant ma boule roulante, 

En roulant ma boule roulante, 

En roulant ma boule.” 

It was the gayest time the old cabin had ever 
known, and it seemed almost lonely when they 
had gone. 

‘ 7 olly lot!’’ said Carl. ‘T fancy Mr. Farr 
was n’t far wrong when he said that Larue 
was n’t a bad fellow when you get on the right 
side of him. Anyhow, it ’ll be a great relief to 
know that we can leave the bee-yard without be- 
ing afraid that it ’ll be robbed or burned out dur- 
ing the winter. I believe that forest fire was 
worth all the trouble it made.” 

When they had put the hives back into their 
winter cases and stored the supplies carefully 
away in the cabin, the work for the season was 
finished. Bob was anxious to get back to town 


324 WILDERNESS HONEY 

for the fall term, and neither Carl nor Alice were 

unwilling to leave. The bees would need no 

more attention for six or eight months, and 

there was nothing to keep them longer in the 

woods. 

They left nearly all their house-keeping outfit 
in the shanty, boarded up the windows, and nailed 
up the door. The wagon came from Morton for 
their baggage, but they themselves preferred to 
go down to the railway by the river. 

It was a cloudy, chilly fall day when they got 
into the boat for the last time, not without regret. 

''Good-by, old shanty!'’ called Alice, as they 
pushed off. "I 'll be glad to see you again in the 
spring." 

They stopped a moment at Indian Slough to 
leave a few pails of honey for the Larues. The 
squatter promised to look after their cabin and 
see that no harm came to anything about the 
place while they were gone, and they left the 
whole family on the shore, waving good-by. It 
was hard to believe that these people had been 
such bitter enemies a few weeks earlier. 

"Well, we haven't done so badly," said Bob, 


A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK 325 
as they dropped down the stream. ''We had 
about $500 when we came in here. Now we ’ve 
got nearly $1000, besides about two hundred and 
ten good colonies of bees, that will surely make 
$2000 for us next season.'’ 

"And we ’ve had a lot of fun over it, too,” 
Carl added. "And some pretty tough times, 
along with fires, bears, wolves, and bee-stings. 
But it ’s been better than keeping a country 
store.” 

"I should think so !” Bob exclaimed. "It was 
the luckiest thing that ever happened when I 
heard of these bees for sale. I almost wish that 
we could start at work with them again next 
month.” 

"I almost wish that, too,” said Alice, "but not 
quite. I believe I Ve had enough wild life for a 
few months. Now I ’d like something quiet and 
civilized for a little while — something just like 
Harman’s Corners.” 


THE END 









